MICHAEL  HEILPRIN  AND  HIS  SONS 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


FRANZ  GRILLPARZEB 
AND  THE  AUSTRIAN  DRAMA 

THE  HYGIENE  OP  THE  SOUL:  THE  MEMOIR 
OP  A  PHYSICIAN  AND  PHILOSOPHER 


MICHAEL  HEILPRIN 


MICHAEL    HEILPRIN 

AND  HIS  SONS 


A  BIOGRAPHY 


BY 

GUSTAY  POLLAK 


NEW   YORK 

DODD,  MEAD   AND   COMPANY 
1912 


COPYRIGHT,  1912 
BY  GUSTAV  POLLAK 

Published  September  1912 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


TO 
THE   YOUNGER   GENERATIONS 

AND    ESPECIALLY 

MY  DEAR  GRANDCHILDREN 

WHOSE    FUTURE     I    FONDLY    HOPE 

WILL    BEAR    THE    IMPRESS    OF    THE    PAST 

DESCRIBED    IN    THESE    PAGES 

G.    P. 


2067967 


PEEFACE 

SHORTLY  after  the  death  of  Michael  Heilprin,  in  1888,  I 
planned,  with  the  cordial  appoval  of  Mr.  W.  P.  Garrison, 
then  editor  of  the  New  York  Nation,  to  collect  into  a  volume 
some  of  the  articles  contributed  to  that  journal  by  Mr. 
Heilprin.  The  plan  was  not  carried  out,  and  fate  has  de- 
creed that  I  should  now,  in  writing  of  the  father,  commem- 
orate also  the  lives  of  his  sons,  Louis  and  Angelo.  Time,  I 
am  convinced,  has  detracted  nothing  from  the  value  of 
what,  in  this  volume,  has  been  included  from  the  contribu- 
tions of  Michael  Heilprin  to  the  columns  of  the  Nation  and 
the  Evening  Post.  The  proprietors  of  these  journals  have 
kindly  permitted  the  full  use  of  their  files. 

I  acknowledge  also,  With  thanks,  the  permission  given  me 
by  Messrs.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  to  reprint  extracts  from  the 
"  American  Cyclopaedia,"  the  "  Historical  Reference  Book," 
"Alaska  and  the  Klondike,"  and  from  Appleton's  Popular 
Science  Monthly ;  and  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.  to  quote 
certain  passages  from  "Mont  Pele'e  and  the  Tragedy  of 
Martinique."  I  am  under  similar  obligations  to  Messrs. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  for  permission  to  reprint  the  article 
on  "  The  Geographical  Conquests  of  the  Century "  (pub- 
lished by  them  in  their  volume  on  "  The  Century's  Progress," 
by  arrangement  with  the  proprietors  of  the  Evening  Post) ; 
and  to  the  publishers  of  The  Forum  and  The  Engineering 
Magazine  for  the  use  of  the  articles  quoted  from  these 
periodicals  in  this  book. 

GUSTAV  POLLAK. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I  — MICHAEL  HEILPRIN 

I 

PAGES 
John  W.  Chadwick's  sketch,  in  the  Unitarian  Review,  of  Michael 

Heilprin's  life 3-12 

II 

Political  and  critical' articles  in  the  Nation  —  "The  Crisis  in 
Austria  "  —  De  Tocqueville's  "  French  Revolution  "  —  An  article 
on  Persia  —  Reviews  of  encyclopaedic  works  — Cole's  "  Biograph- 
ical Dictionary  " — Thomas's  "  Dictionary  of  Biography  and  My- 
thology "  —  An  absurd  "  Cyclopaedia  of  Biography  "  —  Life  of 
General  Paez  —  An  article  on  Poland  —  The  reform  movement 
among  the  Jews  —  Charles  the  Bold  —  An  estimate  of  Napo- 
leon —  Panslavism  —  Renan's  "  St.  Paul "  —  Articles  on  the 
Franco-German  War  —  "  Some  of  the  Causes  of  the  War  "  — 
"Will  «the  Miracle  of  1792'  repeat  itself ?"  —  Articles  on 
military  affairs 13-78 

III    ' 

"The  Historical  Poetry  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews"  —  A  review  of 

Mr.  Heilprin  's  book  in  the  Nation  —  Foreign  notices  of  the  work      79-90 

IV 

An  essay  on  "  Foreign  Names  "  —  Confusion  as  to  spelling  of  foreign 
names  —  Journals  and  encyclopaedias  at  sea  —  The  English  and 
the  Roman  alphabet  —  Rules  of  transliterating  names  from 
Eastern  and  modern  languages 91—106 


Comments  on  the  Russo-Turkish  war  —  Semi-military  contributions 

to  the  Nation— Familiarity  with  Eastern  battlefields.    .     .     .107-111 

VI 

Metternich's  Memoirs  —  "County  Names" 112-119 


x  CONTENTS 

VII  PAGES 

Contributions  to  both  the  Nation  and  the  Evening  Post  —  Miscel- 
laneous editorials  on  foreign  politics  —  Important  book  reviews 
—  Russia  and  the  Russians  —  The  site  of  Paradise  —  Freeman's 
"  English  Towns  "  —  Stade's  "  Ancient  Israel "  —  Renan's 
"History  of  Israel"— Mr.  Heilprin's  last  article:  Sayce's 
"  Hibbert  Lectures  " 120-162 

VIII 

Recollections  of  Hungary  and  Poland  —  Revolutionary  poems  — 
Translations  from  Petb'fi  —  A  meeting  with  the  poet —  Scenes 
of  Mr.  Heilprin's  childhood  —  Early  education  —  Study  of 
Hebrew  —  Removal  to  Hungary  —  Acquaintance  with  Kossuth 
and  Szemere  —  Activity  during  the  revolution  —  Travels  in 
France  163-168 

IX 

First  years  in  America  —  Early  interest  in  American  politics  —  An 
incident  at  an  anti-slavery  meeting  in  Philadelphia  —  A  contro- 
versy with  a  Jewish  rabbi  —  Removal  to  Brooklyn  —  Acquaint- 
ance with1  the  Manning  family  —  Kossuth's  sisters  and  other 
Hungarian  patriots  —  A  poem  in  honor  of  Hungarian  supporters 
of  Garibaldi 169-171 

X 

Contributions  to  the  American  Cyclopaedia  —  A  partial  list  of  his 
articles  —  The  article  "Hebrews"  —  A  striking  article  on 
Hungary 172-191 

XI 

Life  in  Washington  —  Acquaintance  with  Spofford,  Seward,  Sum- 
ner,  Dana,  Count  Gurowski,  and  Prof.  Henry  —  Contributions 
to  the  Boston  Continental  Monthly  and  the  Washington  Chronicle 

—  Edits  the  Balance  —  "  A  Voice  from  the  Springfield  Tomb"  192-194 

XII 

Letters  to  his  children  and  his  brother-in-law  —  Removal  to  Yonkers 

—  His  views  of  President  Johnson's  policy  —  Contributes  to  the 
Round  Table  —  Disapproval  of  a  planned  an ti- Austrian  rising 

in  this  country  —  A  historical  glance  at  various  revolutions      .  195-199 

XIII 

A  suggestion  from  Mr.  Garrison  to  Charles  Eliot  Norton  as  to  Mr. 
Heilprin's  lecturing  at  the  Lowell  Institute  —  Mr.  Norton's 
answer  —  Mr.  Heilprin's  attitude  toward  the  new  Hungary  — 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGES 

His  admiration  of  Francis  Deak —  His  views  as  to  France  and 
Germany — His  estimate  of  various  historians — Revision  of 
Appleton's  Cyclopaedia —  O.  B.  Frothingham's  characterization 
of  Mr.  Heilprin  —  His  work  on  the  Cyclopaedia  —  His  children 
as  his  assistants  —  His  relations  with  Ripley,  Dana,  Robert 
Carter  and  Francis  E.  Teall  —  The  Condensed  Cyclopaedia  — 
Interruption  of  work  on  the  Nation  —  Mr.  Godkin's  suggestion 
to  President  Eliot  as  to  a  Harvard  professorship  for  Mr.  Heil- 
prin—  A  meeting  with  Mr.  Eliot — A  letter  from  George 
Bancroft 200-204 

XIV 

Mr.  Heilprin 's  work  for  the  Russian  refugees  —  Dr.  Julius  Gold- 
man's cooperation  —  Founding  of  the  Montefiore  Agricultural 
Aid  Society  —  Self-sacrificing  work  during  a  trying  summer  — 
List  of  colonies  founded  —  An  appeal  to  the  Jews  —  Fate  of  the 
Russian-Jewish  colonies  —  Mr.  Heilprin's  removal  to  Summit, 
New  Jersey  —  A  great  service  to  the  Jewish  cause  —  Mr.  Heil- 
prin's letter  to  Oscar  S.  Straus  —  The  establishment  of  the 
Baron  de  Hirsch  Fund  in  America  —  A  consequence  of 
Mr.  Heilprin's  letter  —  Present  status  of  Jewish  farmers  in 
America 205-220 

XV 

Illness  and  death  — The  funeral—  A  letter  from  W.  P.  Garrison   .  221-222 


XVI 

Home  life  and  personal  characteristics  —  Intimate  traits  —  Love  of 
nature  —  Favorite  novelists  —  Enjoyment  of  life  —  Henrietta 
Heilprin  —  Educational  methods  in  the  home  —  How  the  chil- 
dren were  taught — Excursions  and  other  simple  pleasures  — 
Mr.  Heilprin's  phenomenal  powers  of  conversation  —  His 
modesty  and  helpfulness  —  The  life  in  Summit — Mr.  Heilprin 
as  a  neighbor —  His  manner  of  working  —  Love  of  Hungarian 
music  —  Friends  and  acquaintances :  Prof.  E.  L.  Youmans, 
Samuel  Longfellow,  Horace  Greeley,  Goldwin  Smith,  Prof. 
William  C.  Russel,  Prof.  Child,  Carl  Schurz,  Hugo  Wesen- 
donck,  Friedrick  Kapp,  Dr.  Samuel  Adler,  Dr.  B.  Szold  — The 
"  Namenloser  Verein  "  — The  posthumous  "  Bibelkritische  Noti- 
zen  "  —  Favorite  authors  —  Mr.  Heilprin's  attitude  toward  pub- 
lic men —  His  admiration  for  President  Cleveland — His  tolerant 
liberalism— The  lesson  of  his  life  .  .  .223-229 


xii  CONTENTS 


PART  II  — ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

I  PAGES 

His  early  life  —First  studies  in  natural  history—  Early  interest  in 
art —  Copies  paintings  in  Capitol  —  Talent  for  music —  Work 
on  the  American  Cyclopaedia — An  article  on  Tyndall — A  re- 
view of  Huxley's  "  Elementary  Biology  "  —  Studies  in  Europe 

—  Award  of  Forbes  medal  —  Foreign  travel  —  Ascent  of  Car- 
pathian peaks  —  Return  to  America  —  Professor  and  curator  in 

the  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences 233-240 

II 

Various  books  by  Angelo  Heilprin,  based  on  his  connection  with  the 
Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  —  "  Contributions  to  the  Tertiary 
Geology  and  Paleontology  of  the  United  States "  —  "  Town 
Geology :  The  Lessons  of  the  Philadelphia  Rocks  "  —  Chair  in 
the  Wagner  Free  Institute  of  Science  —  Explorations  in  Florida 

—  "  The  Geographical  and  Geological  Distribution  of  Animals  " 

—  "  The  Geological  Evidences  of  Evolution  "  —  "  The  Animal 
Life  of  Our  Sea-Shore  "  —  "Principles  of  Geology  "  —  Explora- 
tions   in    Mexico — An    ascent   of    Orizaba — A    narrow 
escape    241-263 

III 

Arctic  explorations — Relations  with  Robert  E.  Peary  —  Commands 
West  Greenland  expedition  —  Leads  the  Peary  Relief  Expedi- 
tion to  Greenland  —  "  The  Arctic  Problem  and  Narrative  of  the 
Peary  Relief  Expedition  "  —  A  dramatic  meeting  with  Peary 
on  the  ice-cap 264-268 

IV 

A  journey  to  Alaska—"  Alaska  and  the  Klondike"  —  The  physical 

history  and  geology  of  Alaska 269-276 


The  daring  ascent  of  Mount  Pelee  —  "  Mount  Pelee  and  the  Tragedy 
of  Martinique"  —  Experiences  on  the  summit  of  Pele"e  during 
the  eruption  —  Three  other  investigators  —  George  Kennan'a 
tribute  to  Heilprin's  bravery  —  A  newspaper's  estimate  of  the 
achievement  —  A  second  visit  to  Martinique  —  Account  of  the 
destruction  of  Morne  Rouge  —  Cut  off  from  communication  with 
the  outer  world —  A  newspaper  interview  after  his  return  from 
Martinique 277-305 


CONTENTS  xiii 

VI  PAGES 

The  catastrophes  of  Martinique  and  their  bearing  on  the  Panama 
Canal  —  Conclusions  concerning  the  geological  character  of  the 
Antilles  —  The  region  of  weakness  and  instability  —  Influence 
of  Heilprin's  views  on  the  debates  in  the  U.  S.  Senate  .  .  .  306-316 

VII 

The  Tower  of  Pel^e  —  A  study  of  the  phenomenon  on  the  spot  — 
Saint  Pierre  revisited  —  The  shattered  obelisk —  Heilprin's  con- 
clusions concerning  its  formation 317-328 

vm 

Volcanic  and  seismic  disturbances  —  "  The  Eruption  of  Pelee:  A 

Summary" 329-333 

IX 

A  journey  to  British  Guiana  —  "Impressions  of  a  Naturalist "—  The 
exuberance  of  animal  life  in  Guiana  —  The  mighty  rivers  —  A 
primeval  forest  —  Life  in  the  wilderness  —  The  exploitation  of 
the  interior  .  .  334-350 


A  paper  on  "  The  Progress  of  Discovery  "  —  Problems  in  the  inter- 
continental tract  uniting  North  America  with  Asia  —  The  West 
Central  African  region  a  fruitful  field  for  exploration  —  Geolog- 
ical problems  awaiting  solution  —  The  unknown  extreme  south 
of  South  America 351-356 

XI 

Heilprin's  "  Recollections  of  Huxley  "  —  The  Royal  School  of  Mines 
—  Huxley  in  the  class-room  —  His  criticism  and  his  praise  — 
Huxley's  skill  as  a  draughtsman  —  His  methods  in  lecturing  .  357-368 

XII 

Heilprin's  proposal  of  an  "  International  University  " —  Educational 
ignorance  — ' '  Earth  Knowledge ' '  needed  —  Universities  should 
be  international  rather  than  national  —  Suggestion  of  a  "  trav- 
elling system  "  »- 4  ;  •• 369-377 

XIII 

His  death  and  tributes  to  his  memory  —  Last  paper  from  his  pen  — 
The  funeral  —  Meeting  of  the  Geographical  Society  of  Phila- 
delphia in  his  honor  —  Addresses  by  Dr.  E.  J.  Nolan,  Prof. 
Russell  H.  Chittenden,  Henry  G.  Bryant,  Herbert  L.  Bridgman, 
Prof.  William  Libbey,  Frank  B.  Greene,  and  Dr.  Theodore  Le 
Boutillier  —  Telegram  from  Commander  Peary 378-387 


xiv  CONTENTS 

XIV  PAGES 

Personal  Traits—  A  letter  to  his  mother  —  Elected  Member  of  the 
Royal  Geographical  Society  of  London  —  Various  honors : 
becomes  President  of  the  American  Geological  Society  and 
President  of  the  Association  of  American  Geographers  —  Ob- 
tains patents  for  mechanical  devices  —  Is  awarded  medal  of  the 
Franklin  Institute  —  His  paintings  of  the  eruption  of  Mont 
Pelee  —  Opinion  of  art  critics  as  to  his  work  —  A  map  of  Green- 
land made  by  him  at  the  age  of  six 388-392 

XV 

Angelo  Heilprin  as  lecturer  —  Speaks  at  the  Cooper  Institute  and 
elsewhere  —  Address  on  "  The  Geological  Evidences  of  Evolu- 
tion"    393-427 

XVI 

The  variety  and  methods  of  his  work — Addresses  the  Peabody  Insti- 
tute and  the  Johns  Hopkins  Club  —  Becomes  lecturer  at  the 
Sheffield  Scientific  School  —  Organizes  free  public  lectures  in 
New  Haven  —  Personal  appearance  —  Edits  Lippincott's  "New 
Gazetteer  "  —  A  letter  to  George  F.  Parker  —  A  description  of 
him  in  the  Philadelphia  Press  —  His  bearing  during  his  last 
illness  —  His  scientific  ideals 428-431 

XVII 

Heilprin's  views  on  the  coral  reef  problem  —  He  upholds  Darwin's 
subsidence  theory  —  Reference  to  his  views  in  Francis  Darwin's 
"  Life"  of  his  father  —  Quotation  from  Professor  Judd's  "  Criti- 
cal Introduction  "  —  An  estimate  of  Angelo  Heilprin's  life  and 
work  432-457 


PART  III  — LOUIS  HEILPRIN 

I 

A  brief  sketch  of  his  life  —  An  obituary  in  the  New  York  Evening 
Post  —  Early  close  communion  with  his  brother —  Attends  pub- 
lic schools  in  Brooklyn  and  Yonkers  —  Artistic  and  mechanical 
skill  —  Acquisition  of  languages  —  Assists  his  father  in  revising 
the  American  Cyclopaedia  —Article  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War  .  461-471 

II 

The  "  Historical  Reference  Book  "  —  Difficulties  in  doing  literary 
work  on  account  of  defective  eyesight —  The  labor  of  verifying 
conflicting  statements 472-476 


CONTENTS  xv 

III  PAGES 

Louis  Heilprin's  views  on  Rapid  Transit  —  His  work  in  connection 
with  Vdmbery's  "  Story  of  Hungary  "  —  Revises  the  Century 
"  Cyclopaedia  of  Names  "  —  Gives  private  instructions  in  lan- 
guages and  teaches  at  a  school  in  Summit,  N.  J.  —  Delivers 
some  lectures  —  His  interest  in  engineering  matters  —  Letters 
to  the  New  York  Evening  Post  —  A  prophetic  article  on  Rapid 
Transit  in  the  Engineering  Magazine 477-486 

IV 

"  The  Geographical  Conquests  of  the  Century"  —  Occasional  con- 
tributions to  the  Nation  and  Evening  Post  —  His  familiarity 
with  geographical  subjects  —  Contributes  to  the  Post  an  ency- 
clopsedic  account  of  the  nineeteenth  century's  achievement  in 
exploration 487^99 

V 

The  encyclopaedic  expert  —  Is  asked  to  cooperate  in  the  "  New  In- 
ternational Encyclopaedia  "  —  President  Gilman's  opinion  of  his 
ability  —  His  task  of  revision  —  His  marvellous  memory  —  His 
work  on  Lippincott's  "  Gazetteer  "  —  Three  remarkable  articles 
on  the  Encyclopaedia  Britanuica 500-522 

VI 

Last  contribution  to  the  Evening  Post  —  An  article  on  "  The  Tena- 
cious Ottoman  Empire  " 523-526 

VII 

Louis  Heilprin,  the  man — His  illness  and  death — The  life-long 
weakness  of  his  eyes  —  An  inward  vision  —  His  crayon  sketches 
—  Extraordinary  methods  of  study  —  His  stoicism  —  His  im- 
pression on  strangers  —  His  duty  to  his  f ellowmen  —  His  idea 
of  charity  —  His  interest  in  civic  matters  —  Vegetarian  in  prac- 
tice rather  than  in  theory —  Plans  visit  to  Western  cities  — 
Viewed  as  a  relative  and  friend  —  His  modesty —  His  intellec- 
tual predilections  —  His  interest  in  mechanical  and  mathemat- 
ical problems 527-529 

PART  IV— ANCESTRY  AND  THE  FAMILY 

Michael  Heilprin's  father—  A  sketch  of  his  life  —  Michael  Heilprin's 
mother — Sarah  Franklin,  Michael  Heilprin's  sister — Louis 
Heilprin's  address  at  the  funeral  of  Sarah  Franklin  —  Other 
members  of  the  Heilprin  family 533-540 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Michael  Heilprin Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Henrietta  Heilprin 224 

Angelo  Heilprin 233 

The  Tower  of  Pel&j 317 

Reproduced  from  a  painting  by  Angelo  Heilprin  loaned  to  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York 

Angelo  and  Louis  Heilprin  as  young  boys 389 

From  a  photograph  taken  in  the  early  'sixties 

Exact  reproduction  of  a  pencil  drawing  of  a  Map  of 
Greenland  made  by  Angelo  Heilprin  at  the  age  of 
six  years 391 

Louis  Heilprin 461 

A  crayon  sketch  by  Louis  Heilprin 527 

Phineas  Mendel  Heilprin 531 


PABT  I 
MICHAEL   HEILPRIST 


MICHAEL  HEILPRIN 


A   BRIEF    SKETCH    OF   HIS   LIFE 

On  the  tenth  of  May,  1888,  there  died  at  Summit,  N".  J.,  a 
man  little  known  to  the  world  at  large,  but  of  unique  reputa- 
tion among  the  learned  few.  His  character  and  his  achieve- 
ments called  forth  glowing  encomiums  from  those  best  qualified 
to  appreciate  him.  The  fullest  of  these  tributes  was  from  the 
pen  of  John  W.  Chadwick,  a  distinguished  Unitarian  clergy- 
man and  an  author  of  note.  The  article  appeared  in  the  Uni- 
tarian Review  for  September,  1888,  and  is  here  reprinted,  with 
the  correction  of  a  few  errors  in  date. 

"  Michael  Heilprin :  a  noble  scholar.  It  was  my  privilege  to 
call  this  man  my  friend,  to  receive  from  him  an  esteem  and  af- 
fection which  I  could  never  understand,  but  which  made  me 
worthier  of  them  than  I  should  otherwise  have  been.  Therefore, 
I  come  to  speak  his  praises  now  that  he  is  dead.  It  is  always 
fit  and  pleasant  to  give  honor  where  it  is  due.  It  is  never  more 
so  than  when  the  good  we  celebrate  was  cloistered  from  the 
world,  or  when  the  work  was  known  and  held  in  due  respect 
while  still  the  workman  was  withdrawn  from  public  view.  With 
Mr.  Heilprin  it  was  so  to  a  very  great  extent.  His  literary  la- 
bors were  for  the  most  part  anonymous.  The  only  exception  was 
his  Historical  Poetry  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews.  His  terrible  toil 
on  Appleton's  Cyclopaedia  was  justly  prized  by  the  publishers 
and  editors  of  that  admirable  work ;  but  its  amount  and  character 
were  known  to  few,  —  only  to  his  immediate  coadjutors  and  per- 
sonal friends.  The  same  is  true  of  his  critical  work  upon  the 
Nation,  which  began  with  its  fourth  number  and  continued  for 
more  than  twenty  years.  Many  thousands  have  read  his  articles 


4  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

with  admiration  who  had  not  the  faintest  idea  of  the  personality 
of  their  benefactor.  It  is  not  often  that  so  much  of  intellectual 
power  is  exercised  in  this  impersonal  way.  He  was  well  satisfied 
to  have  it  so.  Not  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the  good  opinion 
of  his  friends  and  those  who  were  well  qualified  to  judge  his 
work,  but  to  do  it  honestly  and  well  was  ever  his  main  source 
of  satisfaction.  For  general  fame  or  reputation  he  had  little 
care.  This  disposition  is  ever  an  encouragement  to  our  praises 
of  the  men  of  parts  and  character  whom  it  adorns. 

Though  I  knew  Mr.  Heilprin  well  for  many  years,  he  was 
ever  slow  to  talk  about  himself ;  and  I  must  rely  upon  a  friendly 
hand,  incapable  of  erring  in  such  matters,  for  the  particulars  of 
his  earlier  life.  He  was  born  in  Piotrkow,  in  Russian  Poland, 
in  1823,  inheriting  the  aptitude  of  a  long  line  of  Hebrew  schol- 
ars, the  earliest  upon  the  list  in  the  catalogue  of  the  British 
Museum  writing  in  1558.  His  father,  Phineas  Mendel  Heil- 
prin, who,  sharing  the  fortunes  of  his  son,  died  in  Washington, 
D.  C.,  in  1863,  was  a  merchant-scholar  in  the  manufacturing 
town  of  Tomaszow,  where  Mr.  Heilprin  spent  his  youth.  The 
father,  engaging  in  the  business  of  the  place,  was  a  Hebrew 
scholar  of  high  rank  and  an  ardent  student  of  Maimonides,  yet 
not  less  of  Kant  and  Fichte  and  other  philosophers  of  the  Gentile 
schools.  Michael  began  the  study  of  Hebrew,  as  did  his  play- 
mates generally  among  the  Polish  Jews,  at  the  age  of  four  or 
five.  He  never  at  any  time  was  sent  to  school  or  had  any  teacher 
except  his  father.  German  was  his  mother  tongue ;  but,  when 
still  a  boy,  he  obtained  a  perfect  mastery  of  the  Polish  language. 
He  studied  simultaneously  Latin,  Greek,  and  French,  rising 
regularly  every  morning  at  two  o'clock  and  settling  down  im- 
mediately to  his  books.  From  an  early  period,  the  grandeur  of 
Hebrew  poetry  and  the  difficulties  of  Hebrew  grammar  had 
much  more  attraction  for  him  than  Talmudic  subtleties.  In  his 
own  unconventional  way,  he  became  the  instructor  of  his  brother 
and  a  sister,  and  when  about  fifteen  collected  around  him  a 
number  of  equally  youthful  disciples.  To  '  take  and  give  not 
on  again  '  was  never  satisfactory  to  him ;  but,  if  ever  at  any  time 
his  manner  was  didactic  or  pedagogical,  it  had  ceased  to  be  so  in 
his  full  maturity.  While  still  a  boy,  his  mental  outlook  was  en- 
larged by  visits  to  Prussia  with  his  father;  and  his  linguistic 


A   BRIEF   SKETCH   OF   HIS   LIFE  5 

attainments  began  to  attract  the  attention  of  distinguished  He- 
braists. Already  he  had  begun  the  study  of  comparative  philol- 
ogy, making  careful  notes  of  his  own  observations.  In  after  life, 
he  retained  lively  recollections  of  the  Polish  insurrection  of 
1830-31,  and  of  his  growing  sense  of  the  oppression  of  the  Rus- 
sian yoke.  This  came  at  length  to  be  so  unbearable  that  in  1842 
his  parents  sought  a  refuge  from  it  in  Hungary,  and  he  went 
with  them  and  his  young  wife ;  for,  though  but  twenty  years  of 
age,  he  was  already  married. 

For  two  years  after  his  arrival  in  Hungary  he  devoted  himself 
to  the  study  of  the  language,  history,  and  institutions  of  his  new 
home.  The  great  national  liberal  movement,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Szechenyi,  Eotvos,  Deak,  and  Kossuth,  was  then  well 
under  way ;  and  Mr.  Heilprin  was  pledged  by  his  experience  in 
Poland  and  by  his  recent  studies  to  unite  himself  with  this.  He 
established  a  bookstore  in  Miskolcz  (which  is  still  flourishing)  ; 
and,  coming  much  in  contact  with  the  Hungarian  gentry,  he 
soon  enjoyed  their  merited  esteem  so  much  that,  though  he  was 
still  wearing  the  peculiar  costume  of  a  Polish  Jew,  he  was  re- 
ceived into  the  local  club  of  nobles.  When  the  revolution  of 
1848  broke  out,  his  reputation  as  a  writer  was  established,  and 
his  revolutionary  poems  were  widely  popular.  He  was  offered 
and  accepted  the  position  of  secretary  to  the  literary  bureau  at- 
tached to  the  department  of  the  interior.  After  the  proclamation 
of  Hungarian  independence  in  1849,  he  followed  the  government 
to  Debreczin,  and  back  to  Pesth  and  to  Szegedin,  when  the  exi- 
gencies of  war  necessitated  these  removals  of  head-quarters  from 
place  to  place.  The  revolution  soon  collapsed,  inherent  weakness 
co-operating  with  the  basest  treachery  to  this  end;  and  Mr. 
Heilprin  barely  escaped  capture  by  the  Austrians.  After  re- 
maining in  concealment  for  some  months,  he  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing his  escape,  and  went  to  Paris.  There  began  that  failure  of 
his  eyesight  which  obliged  him  finally  to  rely  very  largely  upon 
others'  reading  for  the  acquisition  of  his  stores  of  information. 
This  great  misfortune  had  its  compensations.  It  made  the 
studies,  which  might  otherwise  have  isolated  him,  a  bond  of 
union  between  him  and  the  members  of  his  family.  Unable  to 
obtain  in  France  the  means  of  livelihood,  —  especially  with  fail- 
ing sight,  —  the  rigor  of  the  Austrian  authorities  having  some- 


6  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

what  relaxed,  he  resolved  to  run  the  risk  of  returning  to  Hun- 
gary. His  six  months  in  France  were  not  wholly  lost.  He  made 
a  long  pedestrian  excursion,  following  the  river  Loire.  It  was 
one  of  many  that  renewed  his  youth  from  year  to  year.  No 
sturdier  walker  could  be  found,  nor  one  who  more  enjoyed 
perambulation.  Another  pleasure  which  he  had  in  France  was 
in  attending  the  lectures  at  the  Sorbonne  of  Michelet,  Jules 
Simon,  and  others. 

Even  before  returning  to  Hungary,  Mr.  Heilprin  had  resolved 
to  seek  a  home  in  England  or  the  United  States;  and,  while 
teaching  school  in  Ujhely,  he  addressed  himself  ardently  to  the 
study  of  the  English  language,  so  that  when  he  finally  left  Hun- 
gary, in  1856,  he  had  thoroughly  mastered  it.  His  principal 
text-book  was  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall.  He  scrupulously  fixed 
the  pronunciation  of  every  doubtful  word,  and  identified  on  the 
map  every  locality  mentioned  in  the  work.  Going  to  England,  he 
again  met  Kossuth,  who  gave  him  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr. 
Seward,  which  he  never  used.  It  was  the  advice  of  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Henry  Channing  that  determined  him  to  come  to  America ; 
and  it  was  among  his  friends  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  that  he  ulti- 
mately found  some  of  the  most  kind  and  faithful  of  his  own,  — 
Mr.  R.  H.  Manning,  his  wife,  and  sister  Elizabeth,  with  whom 
Margaret  Fuller  had  spent  a  happy  season  of  some  months'  dura- 
tion just  before  starting  on  that  journey  which  had  no  return. 
When  Mr.  Heilprin  came  to  this  country,  other  Hungarian  exiles 
were  already  here,  —  among  them  two  sisters  of  Kossuth,  and 
one  of  these,  Madame  Zulavski,  had  tender  nursing  under  Mr. 
Manning's  roof  until  her  death,  when,  at  her  burial,  Mr.  Heil- 
prin spoke  the  gratitude  of  the  exiles  to  the  Manning  household, 
ever  a  fountain-head  of  kindly  offices  to  those  in  need  of  them. 

It  was  a  precarious  living  that  he  earned  by  teaching  until 
1858,  when  his  connection  began  with  Appleton's  New  American 
Cyclopaedia.  It  was  then  in  its  third  volume ;  and  at  his  first 
meeting  with  the  editors,  Messrs.  Ripley  and  Dana,  he  so  im- 
pressed them  with  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  his  scholarship 
that  he  was  at  once  intrusted  with  the  revision  of  all  the  geo- 
graphical, historical,  and  biographical  articles.  He  himself 
wrote  many  of  these  articles,  that  on  *  Hebrews  '  being  one  of  the 
most  notable.  His  contributions  generally  were  such  as  gave 


A   BKIEF   SKETCH   OF   HIS   LIFE  7 

attention  to  subjects  which,  but  for  him,  would  have  been  over- 
looked. But  his  greatest  service  to  this  work,  for  which  he  cher- 
ished an  affectionate  interest  only  equalled  by  his  interest  in  the 
Nation,  was  on  the  lines  of  verification  and  unification.  It  is 
safe  to  say,  as  has  been  said  already,  that  '  no  other  similar  work 
of  collaboration  published  in  the  English  language  has  ever  had 
this  merit  in  so  high  a  degree,  —  in  which,  for  example,  there 
was  a  uniform  spelling  of  proper  names,  a  uniform  date  for  the 
same  event,  however  often  mentioned,  a  uniform  system  of  tran- 
scribing words  (especially  proper  names)  from  foreign  languages 
not  using  the  Roman  alphabet.'  His  work  on  the  first  edition 
ended  in  1863  ;  and  began  on  the  second,  much  revised,  in  1871 
and  ended  in  1876.  Other  work  of  a  similar  character  engaged 
him  further  on,  and  close  akin  to  it  were  his  articles  in  the  Trib- 
une or  the  Nation  reviewing  works  of  an  encyclopedic  character. 
Reviewing  in  the  Tribune  *  a  certain  biographical  dictionary, 
complete  in  one  volume,  he  ventured  the  statement  that  it  could 
be  convicted  of  five  thousand  errors ;  and  he  never  would  have 
ventured  it  if  he  had  not  been  sure  that  he  could  make  it  good. 
His  reviews  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  in  the  Nation,  as 
volume  after  volume  came  out,  revealed  at  once  the  breadth  and 
accuracy  of  his  own  knowledge  and  the  surprising  carelessness 
of  the  editing  under  consideration. 

Mr.  Heilprin's  connection  with  the  Nation  began  in  1865, 
and  hardly  ended  with  his  death ;  for  it  may  be  assumed  that  in 
more  than  one  careful  article  in  that  journal  we  shall  yet  be  able 
to  detect  the  impress  of  his  hand.  His  work  for  it  was  not  only 
of  the  kind  which  has  been  specified,  but  ranged  through  a  wide 
field  of  critical  and  historical  subjects.  He  had  hardly  been  a 
month  in  America  when  Sumner  was  struck  down  by  Brooks; 
and  the  anti-slavery  conflict,  in  full  career,  convinced  him  that 
human  rights  had  not  all  been  fully  established  in  America. 
He  recognized  but  one  great  battle  here  and  in  Hungary,  and  his 
sympathies  with  the  anti-slavery  party  from  the  first  were  keen 
and  strong.  In  1860,  he  wrote  an  elaborate  article  in  the  Trib- 
une, demolishing  a  Jewish  rabbi,  who  had  come  to  the  rescue  of 
slavery  with  an  army  of  Bible  texts.  But,  while  always  deeply 
interested  in  our  politics  and  reforms,  his  writing  for  the  Nation 
1  This  is  an  error.  For  Tribune  read  Nation. 


8  MICHAEL   HEUPKItf 

was  mainly  upon  European  literature  and  politics  or  in  review 
of  American  works  that  dealt  with  these.  He  was  especially  at 
home  in  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  Eastern  question,  and  prob- 
ably did  more  to  diffuse  sound  information  and  create  just 
opinion  on  the  Bulgarian  and  kindred  complications  than  any 
other  writer  in  this  country.  His  affection  for  the  Nation  was 
remarkable;  so  was  his  jealousy  for  its  good  name.  Writing 
for  it  anonymously,  its  reputation  for  accuracy  was  to  him  a 
constant  inspiration;  and  an  error  in  any  part  of  it  hurt  him 
almost  as  if  it  were  his  own.  It  was  well  for  it  that  he  was 
sympathetic  with  its  principles;  for  he  would  never  write  for 
any  journal,  even  on  literary  subjects,  with  whose  principles  he 
disagreed. 

From  1858  to  1863,  Mr.  Heilprin  resided  in  Brooklyn,  in 
close  association  with  the  exiled  members  of  Kossuth's  family. 
From  1863  to  1865,  he  was  in  Washington,  following  the  for- 
tunes of  the  war  with  intense  interest,  and  acquiring  a  knowl- 
edge of  its  details  that  was  afterwards  of  incalculable  benefit  to 
him  in  the  revision  of  the  Cyclopaedia.  The  restoration  of  the 
political  liberties  of  Hungary,  which  failed  to  satisfy  Kossuth, 
was  to  him  a  source  of  great  encouragement  and  joy.  Francis 
Deak,  who  had  brought  about  the  new  order  of  things  in  Austria- 
Hungary,  ever  remained  his  ideal  statesman.  He  was  not  unlike 
him  in  his  absolute  integrity,  his  simplicity  and  fairness,  and 
the  convincing  logic  of  his  argument  Had  he  chosen  to  return 
to  Hungary,  as  did  many  of  his  fellow-exiles  after  1867,  he 
would  undoubtedly  have  achieved  distinction  in  the  political 
history  of  the  United  Empire.  But,  if  Hungary  was  his  first 
adopted  country,  America  was  his  second;  and  his  work  here 
had  now  become  so  happy  and  assured  that  he  did  not  care  to 
break  it  off. 

Through  all  his  editorial  and  journalistic  work,  Mr.  Heilprin 
had  kept  a  roomy  corner  in  his  mind  —  the  corner  next  his  heart 
—  for  his  Old  Testament  studies ;  and,  when  the  revision  of 
the  Cyclopaedia  was  completed  in  1876,  he  began  to  put  his 
studies  into  literary  form,  and  in  1879  published  the  first,  and 
in  1880  the  second,  volume  of  his  Historical  Poetry  of  the  An- 
cient Hebrews.  At  an  early  age,  he  had  made  himself  familiar 
with  the  course  to  date  of  modern  criticism  of  the  Old  Testa- 


A   BRIEF   SKETCH   OF   HIS   LIFE  9 

ment ;  and  of  every  subsequent  stage  lie  had  kept  himself  thor- 
oughly informed.  He  had  accepted,  not  grudgingly,  but  with 
enthusiasm  and  delight,  those  views  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
have  been  developed  by  Graf  and  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen  and 
Reuss  (central  to  which  is  the  assignment  of  the  Levitical  por- 
tions of  the  Pentateuch  to  the  fifth  century  B.  c.)  ;  and  his  sym- 
pathetic criticisms  of  their  studies  in  the  Nation  from  time  to 
time  have  been  an  important  factor  in  familiarizing  American 
scholars  and  readers  with  them.  But  he  was  a  slavish  follower 
of  none  of  these  distinguished  men.  In  his  Historical  Poetry  of 
the  Ancient  Hebrews  there  are  many  novel  points  of  view,  many 
original  constructions  of  the  text  and  of  the  tendency  of  various 
documents.  His  translations  of  the  poems  and  fragments  at- 
tested equally  his  familiarity  with  Hebrew  and  English.  For 
vigor  and  for  beauty,  they  are  alike  remarkable,  so  that  it  is  not 
difficult  to  appreciate  the  fact  that,  as  a  poet,  he  first  won  his 
literary  reputation.  A  third  volume,  interrupted  by  his  death, 
contains,  we  have  reason  to  believe  from  his  confidential  com- 
munications, matter  of  uncommon  interest.  Its  completion  was 
retarded  by  his  interest  in  the  Jewish  refugees  who  were  driven 
by  Russian  persecution  to  our  shores  a  few  years  ago.  His  inter- 
est in  these  was  not  that  of  a  Jewish  sectary,  which  he  had  long 
ceased  to  be,  but  was  partly  inspired  by  loyalty  to  his  own  race, 
partly  and  mainly  by  his  sensibility  to  every  outrage  and  in- 
dignity offered  to  his  fellow-men.  But,  in  spite  of  his  untiring 
zeal  and  self-sacrificing  devotion,  the  attempt  to  establish  colo- 
nies in  Oregon,  Dakota,  and  New  Jersey  was  very  disappointing, 
mainly  because  of  inadequate  financial  support. 

Mr.  Heilprin's  knowledge  of  history  was  nothing  less  than  an 
epitome  of  its  universal  course.  His  stomach  for  facts  was  some- 
thing wonderful.  His  command  of  dates  was  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands. His  accuracy  was  equal  to  his  range.  He  would  run  his 
eye  along  the  pages  of  a  dictionary  of  dates,  and  make  correc- 
tions by  the  half-dozen  or  the  dozen  upon  every  page.  The  time 
and  place  of  the  six  hundred  battles  and  engagements  of  our 
Civil  War  were  all  at  his  tongue's  end.  Even  Macaulay  could 
not  '  say  his  popes/  fearing  he  might  be  slaughtered  with  the 
Innocents ;  but  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  Mr.  Heilprin  would 
have  failed  in  the  attempt.  His  confidence  in  his  memory  was 


10  MICHAEL   HEILPRIX 

very  great,  and  he  wrote  the  most  elaborate  historical  reviews 
without  a  particle  of  special  preparation.  This  is  an  easy  thing 
to  do  where  one  gets  all  his  knowledge  from  the  book  in  hand. 
But  this  Mr.  Heilprin  never  did.  For  example,  I  recall  a  re- 
view of  the  voluminous  memoirs  of  Metternich.  It  was  written 
from  the  stand-point  of  a  much  wider  knowledge  than  the  book 
involved.  It  checked  and  challenged  many  statements.  I  asked 
him  how  much  special  preparation  it  required,  and  he  said, 
'  None  whatever.'  So  much  knowledge  of  details  is  generally 
fatal  to  the  broader  view.  It  was  not  so  with  him.  His  appre- 
hension of  the  philosophy  of  history  was  not  less  vivid  than  his 
apprehension  of  the  concreter  elements.  He  was  satisfied  with 
no  '  disconnection  dull  and  spiritless/  He  was  enamoured  of 
the  broadest  generalizations  and  the  remotest  causes  of  events. 

Those  who  knew  Mr.  Heilprin  only  in  his  writings  did  not 
half  know  him.  There  was  nothing  specially  attractive  in  his 
style.  It  was  simple  and  transparent,  and  never  faulty  in  its 
grammar.  But  his  conversation  was  phenomenal.  His  speech 
was  hardly  adequate  to  express  the  crowd  of  his  ideas.  The 
appearance  of  a  slight  impediment  arose  (so  he  explained)  from 
his  thinking  with  equal  ease  in  several  different  languages,  while 
to  make  choice  in  which  to  speak  was  sometimes  difficult.  Those 
who  have  read  his  Historical  Poetry  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews 
and  who  have  heard  him  talk  on  the  same  subject  will  bear  me 
witness  that  the  book  is  nothing  to  the  talk.  His  intellectual 
enthusiasm  was  immense,  and  swept  along  his  hearers  in  a  tu- 
multuous flood.  He  had  a  reading  knowledge  of  eighteen  differ- 
ent languages,  having  acquired  Roumanian  in  the  last  weeks  of 
his  life.  He  could  speak  eight,  if  I  remember  rightly,  with 
sufficient  ease.  Withal,  he  was  extremely  modest.  For  all  his 
vast  acquirements  there  was  never  any  assumption  of  extensive 
knowledge,  never,  apparently,  any  consciousness  of  it.  He  made 
it  easy  for  those  who  knew  but  little  to  talk  with  him.  He  never 
reminded  them  of  their  ignorance,  but  gave  them  credit  for  much 
wider  knowledge  than  they  had. 

The  heats  of  scholarship  did  not  exhaust  in  him  the  natural 
juices  of  the  man.  '  Learned  in  books,'  he  was  not  '  little  in 
himself.'  The  face  of  nature  always  had  for  him  delight.  He 
was  a  man  who 


A   BRIEF   SKETCH   OF   HIS   LIFE  11 

'  set  his  face, 
In  many  a  solitary  place, 
Against  the  wind  and  open  sky.' 

For  much  that  he  would  blot  in  this  article,  he  would  insert 
that  he  was  a  vegetarian  from  1850 ;  but  he  kept  the  faith  in 
silence,  without  urging  it  upon  his  friends.  Perhaps  his  death 
at  sixty-five  argues  against  the  habit  of  his  life.  The  vigor  of 
his  intellect  was  not  at  the  expense  of  his  affections.  His  heart 
was  as  a  little  child's.  He  had  great  faculty  for  friendship,  was 
ever  loyal  and  kind,  and  faithful  in  the  observance  of  those  little 
offices  which  the  student  life  may  easily  obscure ;  while  for  his 
immediate  family  he  seemed  to  have  a  heart  as  free,  a  care  as 
gentle  and  deliberate,  as  if  he  had  no  life  but  that  of  his  own 
fireside  joys.  His  domestic  circle  was  remarkable  for  its  mutual 
helpfulness,  for  its  intellectual  sympathy,  for  the  delight  with 
which  its  members  encouraged  each  other  in  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge.  Mr.  Heilprin  lived  to  see  two  of  his  children  arriv- 
ing at  distinction  in  the  fields  of  literature  and  science ;  and  this 
was  not  the  least  of  many  satisfactions  which  rendered  his  se- 
verely simple  life  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  enviable  that 
I  have  ever  known." 

Such,  in  brief  and  substantially  correct  outlines,  was  the 
life  of  Michael  Heilprin.  It  was  my  privilege  and  happiness 
to  be  close  to  him  and  his  sons  as  a  member  of  the  family. 
They  were  all  three  men  of  rare  worth  and  remarkable  en- 
dowments. Angelo  Heilprin,  the  younger  son,  impressed  him- 
self upon  the  scientific  world  in  striking  ways,  and  it  is  still  my 
hope  that  some  day  a  memoir  worthy  of  his  achievements  may 
be  written  by  a  competent  hand.  For  such  a  memoir,  the  present 
volume  may  furnish  material.  It  is  likewise  my  purpose  to 
dwell  on  the  unique  traits  of  character  which  distinguished  both 
the  father  and  his  sons.  Above  all,  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the 
importance  of  Michael  Heilprin's  critical  writings,  which,  fully 
appreciated  by  chosen  scholars,  and  enjoyed,  at  the  time  of  their 
appearance,  by  a  wide  circle  of  readers,  are  now  hidden  from  the 
general  public.  Of  Mr.  Heilprin's  single  work  in  book  form, 
The  Historical  Poetry  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews,  and  other  of  his 
writings,  mention  will  be  made  later  on.  His  literary  life-work 


12  MICHAEL 

—  his  contributions  to  the  !N"ew  York  Nation,  during  a  period  of 
more  than  twenty  years  —  was,  it  is  safe  to  say,  not  surpassed 
by  any  similar  body  of  critical  work  in  the  English  language. 
The  editors  of  that  journal,  in  their  obituary  tribute  to  him, 
justly  said: 

"How  great  is  the  loss  sustained  by  American  scholarship 
through  the  death  of  Mr.  Michael  Heilprin,  the  general  public, 
owing  to  the  man's  invincible  modesty,  cannot  know.  To  this 
journal  and  its  readers  it  may  fairly  be  pronounced  irreparable, 
so  largely  has  he  contributed  during  the  past  twenty  years  to 
whatever  reputation  the  Nation  may  have  acquired  for  literary 
accuracy  or  breadth  of  information." 


II 

ME.    HEILPRIN'S    POLITICAL   AND    CEITICAL 
ARTICLES  IN  THE  NATION 

The  very  first  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  contributions  to  the  Nation, 
on  "  The  Crisis  in  Austria,"  which  appeared  in  the  fourth  num- 
ber of  that  journal,  in  July,  1865,  convinced  the  editors  that 
they  had  found  a  writer  of  remarkable  insight  into  foreign  poli- 
tics. The  article  was  a  summary,  apropos  of  the  fall  of  the 
Schmerling  ministry  in  Vienna,  of  the  changes  in  the  Hapsburg 
monarchy  since  the  revolution  of  1848.  Persons  and  events  were 
sketched  with  a  master's  hand.  The  Emperor  Ferdinand,  Met- 
ternich,  Bach,  Schwarzenberg,  Napoleon  III.,  Francis  Joseph, 
the  Archduchess  Sophia,  Bismarck,  Count  Szechenyi,  Francis 
Deak,  Count  Teleky,  Kossuth;  the  subjugation  of  Hungary, 
the  policy  of  centralization  in  Austria,  the  tentative  constitu- 
tional efforts  of  Schmerling  in  Vienna,  the  antagonism  between 
Magyars  and  Slavs  in  Hungary,  the  opposition  of  Poles  and  Bo- 
hemians to  the  Germans,  the  Schleswig-Holstein  imbroglio,  the 
disasters  of  Magenta  and  Solferino,  the  Polish  insurrection  of 
1863-64,  the  inevitable  approach  of  a  dualistic  experiment  for 
the  empire  —  all  this  was  touched  upon  with  the  fullest  knowl- 
edge and  with  statesmanlike  comprehension. 

This  article  was  followed  by  equally  learned  reviews  of  sev- 
eral important  French  works,  —  the  correspondence  between 
Prince  Adam  Czartoryski  and  Alexander  I.  of  Russia,  Monta- 
lembert's  The  Victory  of  the  North  in  the  United  States,  and 
De  Tocqueville's  eighth  volume,  dealing  with  the  French  Revo- 
lution. An  extract  from  the  review  last  named  will  serve  to 
illustrate  Mr.  Heilprin's  power  of  graphic  condensation: 

DE    TOCQUEVILLE 

"  The  new  political  faith,  preached  by  the  Revolution,  fol- 
lowed in  the  wake  of  the  emigration,  if  it  did  not  precede  it.  It 


14  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

is  wonderful  to  observe  how  easily  most  of  the  European  nations 
were  persuaded  to  make  those  novel  ideas,  apparently  French, 
their  own.  General  causes  had  prepared  them  for  it 

But  the  terror  which  reigned  in  France  was  a  peculiar  off- 
spring of  its  time  and  place.  It  could  nowhere  else  have  the 
character  it  there  bore.  It  was  the  product,  it  is  true,  of  general 
causes,  but  which  local  causes  forced  beyond  all  limits ;  it  was 
the  product  of  the  French  manners,  character,  and  habits,  of 
French  centralization,  of  the  sudden  destruction  of  all  hierarchy. 
Its  force  lay  in  powerful  organization,  in  its  crushing  unity.  It 
could  nowhere  be  imitated  with  success.  To  have  set  a  perni- 
cious example  to  other  times  and  nations  is  an  evil  done  to  pos- 
terity by  the  Convention,  which  by  its  ravings  did  so  much  evil 
to  the  men  of  its  time.  Its  triumph  was  made  possible  by  par- 
ticular domestic  and  foreign  circumstances,  which  are  generally 
overlooked.  It  will  not  always  be  enough  to  attempt  with 
violence  and  temerity  what  appears  impossible.  '  The  Con- 
vention created  the  policy  of  the  impossible,  the  theory  of  rav- 
ing madness,  the  worship  of  blind  temerity.' 

Neither  could  the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution  be  imitated 
and  victory  organized  accordingly.  The  circumstance  will  find 
no  parallel.  Democratic  armies  fought  kings,  when  a  demo- 
cratic revolution  was  sweeping  over  Europe.  The  new  world 
fought  the  old.  Victory  was  carried  by  surprise;  everything 
was  novel.  The  spirit  of  the  revolution  marched  before  its 
martial  banners.  Devastated  Europe  aided  its  ravagers.  The 
new  faith,  as  once  Islamism,  swept  on,  ravaging  and  converting 
at  the  same  time.  Imbecile  princes  were  broken  before  they 
knew  what  was  passing  around  them.  A  stupefied,  servile 
diplomacy,  without  unity  or  harmony,  made  futile  attempts 
to  oppose  an  unparalleled  centralization.  An  equally  servile 
strategy  could  as  little  cope  with  democratic  boldness  and  im- 
petuosity, which  were,  besides,  revolutionary  and  French.  The 
defects  as  well  as  the  good  qualities  of  the  French  co-operated 
alike  in  making  them  triumphant.  .  .  . 

The  Revolution  continued  to  advance,  to  complete  its  course, 
after  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  in  spite  of  reaction,  of  the  suc- 
ceeding vanishing  of  illusions,  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  assem- 
blies, and  of  the  drooping  of  the  spirit  of  freedom,  amidst  the 


ESTIMATE    OF   DE    TOCQUEVILLE  15 

growing  preponderance  of  military  character.  The  armies  re- 
mained energetic  when  the  nation  ceased  to  be  so.  The  war 
power  of  France  survived  the  decline  and  degradation  of  the 
civil  government,  even  when  the  latter  had  fallen  into  the  con- 
temptible hands  of  the  Directory." 

Of  De  Tocqueville  himself  Mr.  Heilprin  drew,  in  a  later 
article,  based  on  the  concluding  volume  of  his  collected  works, 
the  following  portrait: 

"  It  presents  to  us  De  Tocqueville,  entire,  as  he  was  in  the 
period  of  his  maturity  and  vigor,  from  the  time  when  he  had, 
as  the  author  of  Democracy  in  America,  occupied  so  high  a 
place  among  the  foremost  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  age,  almost 
down  to  the  fatal  day  —  the  second  of  December,  1851  —  which 
sent  some  of  the  most  active  minds  of  France  into  an  involun- 
tary retirement,  in  which  our  philosophic  statesman  found  no 
rest,  but  sufficient  otium  cum  dignitate  to  write  his  Ancien 
Regime.  In  academical  and  parliamentary  speeches  or  short 
addresses,  in  literary  and  legislative  reports  (as  for  instance 
on  Cherbuliez's  Democratic  en  Suisse,  on  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  French  colonies,  on  prison  reform,  on  the  affairs  of 
Algeria,  and  on  the  revision  of  the  constitution),  and  in  inde- 
pendent elaborations  on  penal  colonies,  on  emancipation,  on  the 
history  of  Cherbourg,  this  volume  re-introduces  us  to  De 
Tocqueville,  the  writer  and  orator,  philosopher,  legislator,  and 
minister  of  state ;  the  independent  enquirer  so  full  of  modera- 
tion; the  aristocrat  by  birth,  habits,  and  tastes,  whose  task  of 
life  it  is  to  study  the  laws,  and  to  co-operate  in  smoothing  the 
ways  of  political  equality;  the  friend  of  democracy  in  the  New 
World  who  trembles  at  its  advent  —  under  different  auspices  — 
in  the  Old;  the  son  of  legitimists,  but  republican  by  con- 
viction, who  sincerely  defends  the  constitutional  throne  of 
Louis  Philippe;  the  staunch  partisan  of  liberty  and  opponent 
of  centralization  who  above  all  abhors  demagogism ;  the  zealous 
advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  poor  who  sees  in  socialism  the 
worst  kind  of  servitude;  the  ardent  religionist  with  whom 
unlimited  freedom  of  conscience  and  the  separation  of  church 
and  state  are  the  dearest  of  political  tenets;  the  Catholic  by 


16  MICHAEL   HEILPKIN 

education  to  whom  England  and  the  United  States  are  models 
of  a  religious  society;  the  man  of  the  minority  who  is  always 
charitable  and  gentle  in  judging  the  leaders  of  the  majority; 
the  writer  and  speaker  who  charms  us  by  his  diction  without 
ever  sacrificing  simplicity  or  lucidity  to  flowery  ornaments.  But 
it  is,  we  believe,  the  parliamentary  part  of  the  speeches  con- 
tained in  this  volume,  scanty  as  it  is,  which  shows  him,  as  a 
man  of  active  thought,  in  best  relief." 

AN  ARTICLE  ON  PERSIA 

The  next  review,  an  article  on  "Persian  Characteristics," 
showed  Mr.  Heilprin's  familiarity  with  Oriental  subjects.  He 
could  always  present,  with  rare  skill,  the  essence  of  the  author's 
work,  while  letting  the  light  of  his  own  information  play 
upon  it. 

"Modern  Persian  literature  is  decidedly  inferior  in  its 
products  to  that  of  former  centuries.  There  are  numberless 
versifiers,  but  few  poets,  and  the  standard  models  of  the  golden 
age  are  not  even  well  imitated.  Poetry  is  either  a  trade  or 
a  pastime,  never  a  vocation.  The  shahs  are  beset  by  beggar 
bards,  have  their  poet-laureates,  and  make  verses  themselves. 
Nasser-ed-din  is  both  a  poet  and  a  patron  of  literature.  Chil- 
dren are  taught  Saadi's  Gulistan,  learning  its  most  striking 
epigrams  by  heart.  Poems  form  the  principal  basis  of  edu- 
cation. Every  respectable  conversation  must  have  its  rich  ad- 
mixture of  spirited  or  pointed  quotations.  The  precepts  of 
the  Koran  are  studied  with  less  reverence  than  the  teachings 
of  Saadi  or  Hafiz;  its  legends  are  not  as  well  known  as  the 
fabulous  tales  of  Firdousi.  A  good  elocution  and  a  fine  florid 
style  is  what  every  man  of  culture  tries  to  acquire;  a  lucid 
and  chaste  diction  is  rarely  to  be  met  with.  Caligraphy  is  the 
constant  study  of  everybody,  from  childhood  to  old  age.  Letters 
and  notes  are  written  with  the  utmost  care  and  neatness. 
Mirzas  carry  a  collection  of  writing  materials  attached  to  their 
girdle.  For  fine  manuscripts  or  exquisite  writing-samples  high, 
sometimes  fabulous,  prices  are  paid.  Printed  books,  in  which 
the  peculiar  way  of  writing  the  Arabic  letters  cannot  well  be 


AN  ARTICLE   ON   PERSIA  IT 

imitated,  are  less  valued  than  well-executed  lithographic  works. 
Geography  is  generally  taught  according  to  the  old  Ptolemaic 
system;  few  scholars  know  its  modern  developments.  Asia  is 
tolerably  well  known1  from  historical  traditions  and  the  ex- 
periences of  travelling  merchants,  roving  dervishes,  and  pious 
pilgrims.  Of  Europe,  only  the  principal  countries  are  known. 
History  is  a  most  favorite  study,  though  acquired  not  less 
superficially.  It  generally  begins  with  the  conquests  of  Islam. 
Mirkhond's  renowned  historical  work,  Eutzet  es  Safe,  is  to  be 
found  in  every  respectable  house.  A  continuation  to  our  times 
has  lately  been  elaborated.  Histories  of  Napoleon,  after  Scott ; 
of  Peter  the  Great  and  Charles  XII.,  after  Voltaire;  and  of 
Czar  Nicholas,  after  Baron  Korff,  lately  issued,  are  widely  and 
closely  studied,  sometimes  to  the  perplexity  of  Europeans,  who 
are  surprised  to  find  themselves  comparatively  ignorant  on 
those  topics.  Works  on  mathematical  and  other  scientific  sub- 
jects also  circulate  in  manuscripts  or  lithographs.  But  instruc- 
tion, in  general,  is  still  in  a  primitive  stage,  though  private 
schools  abound,  and  almost  everybody  learns  a  little,  women 
not  excepted." 

REVIEWS  OF  ENCYCLOPEDIC  WORKS 

In  the  fifteenth  number  of  the  Nation,  that  of  October  12, 
1865,  appeared  the  first  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  remarkable  series 
of  reviews  of  encyclopedic  works.  The  wonder  at  his  erudition 
is  enhanced  if  we  remember,  as  Mr.  Chadwick  and  others  have 
pointed  out,  that  these  reviews  were  always  written  from  a 
single  reading  of  the  contents  —  sometimes  after  a  rapid  glanc- 
ing at  the  pages  —  and  that  Mr.  Heilprin  hardly  ever  found 
it  necessary  to  refresh  his  memory  by  comparing  his  corrections 
with  standard  authorities  or  books  of  reference.  His  accuracy 
was  infallible.  In  other  contributions  he  had  shown  a  philos- 
opher's grasp  of  large  historic  movements;  in  these  was  dis- 
played the  minute  and  diversified  knowledge  of  the  encyclo- 
paedist. The  following  may  serve  as  a  specimen  of  his  reviews 
of  this  class: 


18  MICHAEL   HEILPKHST 

COLE'S  "  BIOGRAPHICAL  DICTIONAKY  "  l 

This  neatly  and  correctly  printed  little  volume  will  be  found 
a  very  useful  hand-book,  affording  "  ready  information  of  the 
births  and  deaths  of  deceased  persons,  more  or  less  noteworthy, 
of  all  countries  and  periods."  The  author  modestly  hopes  — 
and  we  trust  his  hope  will  not  be  deceived  —  that  it  will  "  lie 
upon  the  desk,  an  unobtrusive  companion  of  other  books  of 
many  sorts,  to  give  a  reader  its  rapid  answer  whenever  he  is 
tempted  to  pause  at  a  name,  and  ask  no  more  than  '  When  did 
he  live  ? ' ' '  This  curiosity  he  satisfies  in  the  plainest  and  short- 
est way,  generally  in  a  line  to  a  query.  The  additions  attached 
to  the  names  and  dates,  which  also  answer  the  question  "  Who 
was  he  ?  "  or  "  What  has  he  done  ?  "  are  not  intended  to  furnish 
a  condensed  biography,  but  chiefly  to  identify  the  individuals. 
The  italics  within  brackets  indicate  some  production  of  the  pen 
or  some  work  of  art  —  whenever  possible,  a  chef  d'ceuvrej  the 
italics  without  brackets  indicate  a  second,  an  assumed,  or  an 
original  name.  Biographies  of  the  subject  are  referred  to  thus : 
"  Life  by  ..."  or  "  L.  by  ...  "  When  we  add  that  this 
biographical  dictionary  contains  no  less  than  eighteen  thousand 
names,  and  that  the  author  has  labored  with  conscientious  zeal 
and  rare  diligence  in  verifying  his  dates,  the  reader  will  at  once 
perceive  how  much  benefit  he  may  derive  from  such  a  companion 
of  his  literary  occupations. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  but  regret  that  the  author  has 
not  also  bestowed  on  his  work  the  attention  and  labor  necessary 
to  make  it  complete,  uniform,  and  as  correct  in  everything  else 
as  it  is  in  dates.  His  acquaintance  with  English,  French,  and 
classical  history  and  literature,  and  the  use  of  a  number  of 
standard  guides  to  biographical  knowledge,  have  enabled  him 
to  perform  parts  of  his  task  thoroughly  and  accurately ;  in  others 
he  has  been  less  successful,  chiefly  from  want  of  discrimination 
in  making  the  choice  of  his  subjects.  While  thousands  of  names 
given  might  be  eliminated  without  detriment  to  the  plan  of  the 
book,  other  thousands,  of  real  historical  value,  are  wanted  to 

1  "  A  Brief  Biographical  Dictionary.  Compiled  and  Arranged  by  the  Rev. 
Charles  Cole,  B.A.,  Trinity  College,  Cambridge."  London  and  Cambridge: 
McMillan  &  Co.  1865. 


COLE'S    " BIOGEAPHICAL   DICTIONARY"      19 

make  it  complete.  Of  this  an  American  reader  will  easily  be 
convinced,  when,  after  finding  on  its  first  page  a  list  of  such 
names  as  C.  C.  H.  vander  Aa,  P.  vander  Aa,  N".  Aagard,  C. 
Aagard,  E.  Aalst,  W.  Aalst,  A.  Aaron,  Aaron  Acharon,  P. 
Aarsens,  F.  van  Aarsens,  Aartgens,  Abano,  Abascal,  Abate, 
Abati,  Abatini,  Abauzit,  Abbadie,  etc.,  he  will  in  vain  look  for 
the  date  of  birth  or  death  of  such  Americans  of  former  or  recent 
times  as  Hancock,  Otis,  Montgomery,  Arnold,  Sumpter,  Marion, 
Mercer,  Randolph,  Benton,  Douglas,  Perry,  John  Brown,  Foote, 
Kearney,  or  Reno.  A  Pole  must  be  equally  surprised  not  to 
find  the  names  of  such  chief  representatives  of  his  country's 
ancient  military  or  literary  glory  as  Chodkiewicz,  Zolkiewski, 
Czarnecki,  and  Kochanowski,  or  the  names  of  the  (now  de- 
ceased) principal  leaders  in  the  memorable  revolution  of  1831 

—  Wysocki,  Chlopicki,  Dwernicki,  Skrzynecki,  and  Dembinski, 
whom  not  even   a  fifth-rate  general  history  or  biographical 
cyclopaedia  will  pass  over  in  silence.     A  Hungarian  will  not 
only  miss  the  equally  renowned  heroes  and  martyrs  of  his 
late   struggle,    Damjanics,    Nagy    Sandor,    Csanyi,    and    Sze- 
chenyi,   but   also   such   old  historical   names   as   King   John 
Zapolya,  Bocskai,  and  the  elder  Zrinyi  —  the  Leonidas  of  mod- 
ern times  —  though  he  may  discover  his  Hunyady,  Tokolyi,  and 
Rakoczy,  if  he  knows  that  the  English  persist  in  calling  them 
Hunniades,  Tekeli,  and  Ragotski.    Hardly  less  grievous  is  the 
omission  of  such  modern  historical  or  literary  names  —  Italian, 
German,  Greek,  and  Servian  —  as  Leopardi,  Colletta,  Bandiera, 
and  Ruggiero;   Schill,  Sand,  Hebel,  Immermann,  and  Lenau; 
Odysseus  and  Miaulis;   Czerny  George  and  Milosh.    But  even 
of  modern  French  names,  in  spite  of  the  author's  diligent  use 
of  both  the  "  Biographic  Universelle "   and  "  ISTouvelle  Bio- 
graphie  Generale,"   we   find   such   as  the   following  missing: 
Generals  J.  B.  Cavaignac,  M.  Dumas,  and  Dampierre ;  Gregoire, 
Decazes,  Godefroy  Cavaignac,  and  Proudhon ;  and  the  regicides, 
Louvel,  Alibaud,  and  Fieschi.     Jewish  history  and  literature, 
ancient  as  well  as  modern,  are  altogether  very  poorly  repre- 
sented.    ISTot  only  are  the  non-royal  biblical  names,  as  Moses, 
Joshua,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah,  as  it  appears, 
consistently  omitted  —  for  reasons  neither  stated  nor  obvious 

—  but  also  some  of  the  most  distinguished  post-biblical  names 


20  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

of  Hebrew  literature,  as  the  Rabbis  Solomon  Isaaki,  !N"ach- 
manides,  and  Solomon-ben-Meir,  or  the  poets,  Moses-ben-Ezra, 
M.  H.  Luzzato,  and  Wessely,  are  not  to  be  found,  while  others 
incomparably  less  important  are  given. 

Ignorance  of  the  Hebrew  language  on  the  part  of  the  author, 
and,  probably,  also,  of  his  authorities,  is  the  source  of  several 
errors.  Thus  Hillel  the  Elder  is  designated  Hassa  Ken,  which 
stands  for  Ha-Zaken  or  Haz-Zaken  (Heb.,  ha,  the,  and  zaken, 
old)  ;  R.  Albe's  Sepher  ha-ikkarim  ("  Book  of  Principles  "), 
is  called  Sepher  Hikkarim;  the  surname  of  one  Rabbi  Juda  is 
given  in  this  way,  Hakkadosh,  and  that  of  another  thus,  Ha- 
Levi,  though  ha  is  the  same  definite  article  in  both.  German 
words  and  titles  are  rarely  given,  but  not  without  errors.  The 
French  and  Italian  are  well  handled,  still  we  find  Literaire 
(one  i,  p.  208),  Memoirs  sur  Napoleon  (without  accents,  p.  3), 
Ercole  de  (not  di  or  da)  Ferrara  (p.  205),  and  similar  slight 
mistakes.  The  names  of  the  subjects,  probably  for  typo- 
graphical reasons,  are  all  given  without  accents,  which  makes 
many  look  very  awkward,  as  D'Estrees,  Fenelon,  Stael,  Cam- 
baceres,  Arpad,  Kolcsey,  Blucher,  Muller,  etc.  The  Russian 
broad  v,  preceded  by  o,  in  the  termination  of  family  names,  is 
represented  in  all  possible  ways,  as  in  Ivano/,  Volko/f,  Nakhi- 
mov,  and  Kracheninnikow;.  "  DerscTiawin,  or  Derzftavine/' 
which  is  a  mixture  of  German,  English,  and  French,  is  another 
exemplification  of  our  careless  way  of  spelling  names  of  nations 
whose  alphabet  is  not  the  Roman.  From  the  author's  general 
rule  of  giving  all  common  Christian  names  only  in  English,  the 
Hungarian  names,  as  attached  to  Katona,  Kazinczy,  Petoefi,  and 
others,  seem  to  form  the  only  exception.  The  Vladislases  of 
Hungary  are  erroneously  mixed  up  with  the  Ladislases.  King 
Stephen  II.,  of  the  same  nation,  the  emperor  of  the  East,  Michael 
II.,  and  the  Lewises  of  Germany  receive  their  surnames  in 
French,  as  given  in  the  author's  principal  authorities  for  non- 
English  biography,  thus:  Le  Foudre,  Le  Begue,  Le  Jeune, 
L'Aveugle,  U Enfant  —  while  the  surnames  of  the  French 
Charleses  are  given  in  English,  the  Bold,  the  Fat,  the  Fair, 
the  Wise,  etc.  We  find,  also,  some  inaccurate  dates  of  reigns,  as 
1204  for  1205,  1826  for  1825,  and  1857  for  1858,  under 
Andrew  II.,  Nicholas,  and  Frederic  William  IV. 


COLE'S   "BIOGRAPHICAL   DICTIONARY"      21 

Repetitions,  instead  of  references,  are  frequent,  being  mostly 
intentional,  and  caused  by  differences  of  names  or  spelling,  or 
by  such  additional  syllables  as  de,  di,  da,  del,  etc.,  but,  we  must 
confess,  in  their  discrepancies  they  often  reveal  an  uncommon 
degree  of  haste  in  compiling  or  copying,  to  say  the  least.  A 
few  examples  will  suffice  as  illustrations : 

"  Cosmo  II.  de  Medici.  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany.  Life  by  Aldus 
Manutius,  Jun.,  1585.  Born  1519  — died  Apr.  21,  1574." 

"Medici,  Cosmo  de.  The  Great.  1st  Grand-duke  of  Tuscany, 
Life  by  Baldini.  Born  1519  —  died  Apr.  21,  1574." 

"  De  Gerando,  Joseph  Mary,  Baron.    Fr.  Statesman." 

"  Gerando,  Joseph  Mary,  Baron  de.    Fr.  Philosoph.  Writer." 

"  D.  Herbelot,  Bartholomew.    Orientalist." 

"  Herbelot,  Barthol.  d'.    Fr.  Orient.     (BittiotJi.  Orientate.)  " 

"  Fabius  Maximus,  Q.    Cunctator.    Opponent  of  Hannibal." 
"  Maximus,   Q.   Fabius.     Cunctator.     Roman   General  against 
Hannibal." 

"  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  Painter.  Life  by  Amaretti;  J.  W.  Brown, 
1828." 

"  Da  Vinci,  Leonardo.    Painter.    L.  by  J.  W.  Brown,  1828." 

"  Maccabseus,  Judas.    Jewish  Patriot." 

"  Judas  Maccabaeus.    Jewish  Patriot  (166-160)." 

"  Mathias  Corvinus.    King  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia." 
"Matthias  Corvinus.    King  of  Hungary  (1458-90)." 

That  of  the  titles  attached  to  the  eighteen  thousand  names 
many  are  inaccurate,  will  surprise  nobody.  Thus,  Bolivar, 
the  deliverer  of  half  a  continent,  is  called  the  "Liberator  of 
Bolivia  " ;  Benyowsky,  who  was  born  in  Hungary,  and  roamed 
all  over  the  world,  a  "  Polish  Adventurer  " ;  and  Solomon  ben 
Virga,  a  "  Spanish  Rabbi  "  of  the  "  16th  cent,"  in  which  there 
were  no  Jews  in  Spain.  Such  and  similar  errors  or  inaccuracies, 
we  trust,  the  diligent  author  will  eliminate  by  scores  from  his 
valuable  work,  "  in  revising  each  successive  edition  that  may  be 
called  for."  In  the  next,  we  hope  to  find  the  date  of  President 
Lincoln's  birth  added  to  that  of  his  death,  which  is  given. 


22  MICHAEL   HEILPKIST 

Mr.  Heilprin  found  full  scope  for  the  exercise  of  his  critical 
powers  in  the  reviews  of  such  works  as  Lippincott's  Pronouncing 
Dictionary  and  Haydn's  Dictionary  of  Dates.  He  was  severe 
in  his  judgments  only  where  he  considered  it  his  duty  to  expose 
shallow  pretense  and  deliberate  carelessness ;  but  no  one  could 
praise  more  warmly  than  he  did  where  praise  was  deserved, 
as  witness  his  review  of  Dr.  J.  Thomas's  admirable  Dictionary 
of  Biography  and  Mythology,  of  which  he  said  (Nation,  May 
19,  1870) : 

"  Dr.  Thomas's  great  production,  to  which  long  years  of  con- 
scientious and  painstaking  labor  have  obviously  been  devoted, 
affords  us  the  rare  pleasure  of  bestowing  almost  unstinted  praise 
on  an  American  publication  of  large  dimensions,  and  not  re- 
stricted to  a  specialty  —  for  universal  biography,  like  universal 
history,  can  certainly  not  be  classified  among  specialties.  In 
fact,  we  must  declare  it  the  best,  as  well  as  the  most  compre- 
hensive book  of  its  description,  emanating  from  the  pen  of  one 
writer  —  in  any  language  —  which  has  come  under  our  notice. 
In  stating  this,  however,  we  mean  also  distinctly  to  qualify  our 
approbation.  What  the  comprehensive  scholarship,  persever- 
ance, energy,  and  critical  accuracy  of  one  man  may  fairly  be 
expected  to  do  in  this  field,  our  author  has  amply  done;  but 
whether  a  task  of  this  magnitude,  to  be  well  executed,  is  not 
above  the  powers  of  any  single  scholar  —  whatever  his  attain- 
ments may  be  —  is  to  us  a  matter  of  grave  doubt.  The  best  uni- 
versal history  planned  on  a  large  scale,  if  written  by  one  author, 
can  be  nothing  more  than  an  ably  executed  abridgment  of  a  num- 
ber of  special  histories;  an  all-comprehending  cyclopaedia  of 
biography,  if  not  done  by  a  number  of  scholars,  each  elaborating 
his  special  branch,  can  at  the  best  be  an  excellent  compilation." 

In  pointing  out  certain  minor  blemishes  in  Dr.  Thomas's 
work  Mr.  Heilprin  again  evinced  his  extraordinary  familiarity 
with  American  history,  and  especially  with  the  events  of  the 
Civil  War,  which  were  as  fresh  in  his  mind  as  when  he  fol- 
lowed them,  with  the  keenest  patriotic  interest,  during  our 
military  and  political  struggles.  He  said,  of  this  part  of  Dr. 
Thomas's  Dictionary: 


THOMAS'S   BIOGEAPHICAL   WORK  23 

"  We  unhesitatingly  range  ourselves  on  the  side  of  the  critics 
whom  our  author,  as  he  expresses  it  in  his  preface,  expected  to 
'  admit  that,  on  the  whole,  the  space  allotted  to  each  notice 
has  been  apportioned  with  a  fair  measure  of  justice  and  im- 
partiality.' And  we  must  add  that  his  endeavor  to  deal  justly 
and  impartially  with  his  subjects,  in  this  respect,  is  perhaps 
most  evident  there  where  a  contrary  inclination  might  most 
naturally  be  expected.  Of  this  a  comparison  of  articles  like 
those  on  John  Adams,  John  Quincy  Adams,  or  Cooper,  with 
the  brief  notices  of  Buchanan,  Anna  Dickinson,  and  similar 
celebrities  of  our  day  and  country,  will  easily  convince  the 
critical  examiner.  The  brevity  of  the  notice  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
and  the  judgment  passed  on  him  as  leader  of  the  Confederacy, 
show  more  than  all  how  little  the  author  is  inclined  to  magnify 
or  to  criticise  in  accordance  with  newspaper  talk.  He  seems, 
however,  less  free  from  a  kind  of  patriotic  Union  bias  in  deal- 
ing with  the  generals  of  the  civil  war,  as  evinced  in  the  notices 
of  Banks,  Butler,  and  others.  Too  great  brevity  in  some  of 
these  notices  also  makes  us  regret  a  slight  deviation,  in  the 
treatment  of  the  events  of  that  great  struggle,  from  the  '  prin- 
ciples of  perspective '  so  well  established  for  the  whole  work. 
Thus,  neither  the  notice  of  Butler  nor  that  of  Beauregard  has 
any  mention  of  the  fact  of  those  generals  facing  and  fighting 
each  other  on  the  James ;  the  latter  article  has  hardly  an  allu- 
sion to  that  series  of  events;  the  notice  of  Breckenridge  con- 
tains no  mention  of  his  appearing,  with  Early,  before  Wash- 
ington, in  July,  1864,  only  the  defeat  of  their  army  by  Sheridan 
being  stated.  In  the  notice  of  Burnside  we  also  discover  some 
slight  inaccuracies  in  date  —  very  slight  ones,  it  is  true :  '  Sept. 
16,'  instead  of  Sept.  16-17,  being  given  as  the  date  of  the 
battle  of  Antietam ;  '  the  13th  of  December '  as  the  day  on 
which  '  he  crossed  the  Rappahannock  and  attacked  Lee's  army ' 
at  Fredericksburg  —  which  is  correct  only  as  regards  the  at- 
tack; and  'May  9-11,'  with  the  omission  of  the  12th  —  the 
hottest  day  —  as  the  date  of  the  battle  of  Spottsylvania  Court- 
House.  But  even  errors  so  slight  as  these  are  exceedingly  rare, 
which  is  saying  a  great  deal,  if  we  consider  that  the  eight  hun- 
dred pages  before  us  —  the  whole  will  likely  embrace  about 
four  times  as  many  —  contain  myriads  of  dates.  Omissions  of 


24:  MICHAEL   HEUPBIK 

facts  and  defective  descriptions  are  much  more  frequent.  Of 
this  the  notices  of  Alexander  II.  of  Russia  and  of  the  Duchesse 
de  Berry  may  serve  as  examples.  Many  heads,  too,  are  wanting, 
such  as,  of  the  mythological,  Dice ;  of  the  historical,  Dellius ; 
and  of  the  literary,  Biichner  —  names  much  more  important 
than  Bryczynski,  Bube,  or  Du  Buc,  which  we  find  on  one  page." 

I  must  refrain  from  referring  to  other  articles  of  this  nature, 
but  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  quote  from  a  review  of 
a  certain  Cyclopaedia  of  Biography  a  passage  which  shows 
Mr.  Heilprin's  telling  way  of  pointing  out  absurd  incongruities : 

"  Our  cyclopaedia  is  comprehensive  enough  to  give  the  lives 
of  such  men  of  genius  as  Aromatri,  Arpino,  Arriazzi,  Arrighetti, 
Arrighetto,  Arrighetti,  Arsilla,  and  Artalis,  and  of  such  mon- 
archs  as  Augustulus,  Charles  the  Simple,  Dagobert,  Galerius, 
Gratian,  Juba,  and  Numerian.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  too 
compact  and  brief  to  mention  Troy,  the  Iliad,  or  the  Odyssey, 
in  '  Homer ' ;  the  wars  against  the  Greeks,  the  Scythians,  and 
Babylon,  in  '  Darius ' ;  the  Peloponnesian  war,  in  '  Thucydi- 
des ' ;  tyranny  or  cruelty  in  '  Dionysius  ' ;  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  in  '  Ferdinand  II.' ;  the  wars  against  Napoleon  in  '  Fred- 
eric William  III./  or  in  '  Schwartzenberg ' ;  the  deposition  and 
banishment  of  Gustavus  IV.  in  the  life  of  this  king ;  or  Brescia 
or  Italy,  in  i  Haynau.'  It  intentionally  and  consistently  omits 
all  the  biblical  names,  but  with  them  also  all  the  post-biblical 
Jewish  Abrahams,  Davids,  Samuels,  and  Solomons,  not  except- 
ing the  greatest  mediaeval  philosophers,  poets,  or  scholars  of  that 
nation.  Of  monarchs,  it  gives  all  the  Artaxerxeses,  but  no 
Xerxes ;  all  the  German  Conrads,  but  none  of  the  Othbs,  Maxi- 
milians, or  Leopolds;  all  the  English  Henrys,  but  neither 
William  the  Conqueror  nor  William  of  Orange ;  all  the  French 
Charleses,  but  none  of  the  Philips,  not  excepting  Philip  Augus- 
tus ;  a  number  of  Spanish  Alphonsos,  but  no  Philip,  not  even 
the  Second;  all  the  Turkish  Achmets,  but  no  Mohammed  (Sul- 
tan), Solyman,  or  Selim;  no  Attains,  Herod,  Ptolemy,  or 
Seleucus;  no  Stephen,  Ladislas,  Vladimir,  Ivan,  Waldemar, 
Matthias,  or  Pedro;  nor  Attila,  Genseric,  Theodoric,  Rurik, 
Piast,  or  Arpad.  It  has  only  one  Darius,  one  Demosthenes,  and 


GENERAL   PAEZ  25 

one  Pompey;  no  Timoleon,  no  Metellus,  no  Masaniello,  no 
Savonarola,  no  Sixtus,  and  but  one  Clement;  no  Hunniades,  no 
Zrinyi,  no  Aureng-Zebe,  no  Tippoo-Saib,  no  Chlopicki,  no 
Niemcewicz,  no  Pushkin,  no  Petofi.  The  whole  letter  X,  though 
including  Xavier,  Xenocrates,  Xenophon,  and  Ximenes,  fills 
only  half  a  page,  owing,  in  part,  to  what  is  styled  '  compactness,' 
and  in  part  to  the  omission  of  Xanthippus,  Xerxes,  etc.  Less 
space  is  devoted  to  Robespierre  than  to  Rob  Roy  ;  to  John  Huss 
than  to  Giles  Hussey;  to  Kant  than  to  Kean;  to  Spinoza  than 
to  Spontini  ;  to  Alexander  Hamilton  than  to  Aaron  Burr  ;  to 
George  Washington  than  to  Benedict  Arnold."  • 


PAEZ 

Not  many  literary  critics  unite  with  the  ability  of  marshalling 
minute  details  the  gift  of  throwing  on  the  canvas  the  outlines 
of  a  single  commanding  figure.  How  well  Mr.  Heilprin  suc- 
ceeded in  historical  portraiture  of  this  kind  may  be  seen  from 
his  sketch  of  the  Venezuelan  dictator,  General  Paez  (published 
in  the  Nation  of  April  9,  1868).  Mr.  Heilprin  met  Paez  per- 
sonally, conversing  with  him  in  fluent  Spanish.  In  the  article 
he  said  : 

"  Few  lives  recorded  in  history,  of  warriors  or  statesmen, 
have  been  as  eventful  and  checkered  as  the  life  of  the  Venezuelan 
warrior  and  statesman,  Jose  Antonio  Paez.  Of  that  eventful 
career,  which  embraces  half  a  century  of  military  or  political 
activity,  interrupted  only  by  about  a  decade  of  exile,  he  now, 
for  a  third  time  an  exile  among  us,  publishes  a  detailed  account, 
which  is  not  only,  as  it  could  hardly  fail  to  be,  an  interesting 
narrative  of  memorable  events,  but  also  a  valuable  contribution 
to  the  history  of  the  great  struggles  of  this  continent.  The 
introduction  to  the  first  volume  of  this  Autobiography,  which 
is  now  before  us,  and  which  embraces  the  earlier  half  of  the 
author's  life  (1790-1829),  is  dated  (New  York)  the  19th  of 
April,  1867,  the  fifty-seventh  anniversary  of  the  rising  of  the 
capital  of  Venezuela  to  strike  for  liberty  and  self-rule.  Paez, 
then  an  illiterate  llanero  of  the  plain  of  Apure,  the  overseer  of 
a  cattle-farm,  became  one  of  the  earliest,  most  undaunted,  and 


26  MICHAEL   HEILPRHS" 

most  successful  champions  of  the  popular  cause.  Of  aboriginal 
descent,  but  trained  to  hard  service  by  a  cruel  negro  slave; 
early  inured  to  brave  with  stoic  heroism  the  wild  beasts,  the 
scorching  heat,  the  alternate  droughts  and  floods  of  his  tropical 
llano;  a  perfect  master  of  the  horse,  the  lasso,  and  the  lance ; 
followed  with  enthusiasm  by  men  similar  in  birth,  habits,  and 
character,  but  accustomed  to  yield  to  his  superior  mind  and  will ; 
alternately  chasing  and  fleeing  the  Spaniards  across  the  im- 
mense wilds  to  the  west  of  the  Orinoco  —  he  soon  became  the 
foe  most  feared  by  the  Spanish  tyrants;  remained  constantly 
in  the  field  when  terror  or  despair  had  disarmed  all  around; 
joined  Bolivar  in  the  liberating  campaign  of  1813 ;  fought  and 
conquered  when  '  the  Liberator*  fled  (1814);  placed  himself 
under  his  banners  on  his  return  (181T)  ;  saved  the  shattered 
remnants  of  his  forces  in  1818 ;  refused  to  supplant  him  at  the 
demand  of  the  army;  guarded  the  plain  when  Bolivar  crossed 
the  Andes  (1819)  ;  was  by  him,  on  the  battle-field,  proclaimed 
the  hero  of  Carabobo  —  a  victory  which  sealed  the  independence 
of  Colombia  (1821)  ;  received  the  chief  command  of  the  de- 
partment of  Venezuela;  besieged  and  reduced  Puerto  Cabello 
(1823)  ;  and,  after  a  period  of  peace  not  undisturbed  by  plots 
and  attempts  of  various  kinds,  during  which  he  zealously  ex- 
erted himself  to  cultivate  both  his  mind  and  his  state,  he  finally 
rose  to  the  highest  dignity  in  the  gift  of  his  countrymen,  at  the 
moment  when  the  Colombian  confederation  was  dissolved  and 
Venezuela  proclaimed  an  independent  republic  (1830).  This 
consummation  is  to  open  the  narrative  of  the  second  volume, 
which,  if  completing  the  work,  must  bring  us  the  history  of 
Paez's  first  and  second  presidential  terms,  ending  respectively 
in  1835  and  1843 ;  his  first  dictatorship  in  1846,  during  the  civil 
war  of  that  year;  his  flight  before  Monagas  (1848),  and  subse- 
quent attempt  to  overthrow  the  arbitrary  sway  of  that  presi- 
dent; his  surrender  at  Coro  (1849),  imprisonment  and  banish- 
ment (1850)  ;  his  first  return  from  exile  on  the  fall  of  the 
younger  Monagas,  in  1858;  his  speedy  return  to  the  United 
States;  his  recall  to  Venezuela  by  President  Tovar,  who  en- 
trusted him  with  the  chief  command  of  the  army  (1861)  ;  the 
military  insurrection  in  his  favor,  against  Tovar's  successor, 
Gual;  and,  finally,  his  second  dictatorship  and  his  death- 


"FINIS   POLONLE"  27 

grapple  with  the  revolted  Federalists  under  Falcon,  which  ended, 
in  1863,  with  the  victory  of  the  latter  chief,  and  closed,  perhaps 
not  finally,  the  long  political  career  of  Paez." 

AN  ARTICLE  ON  POLAND 

When  America,  in  April,  1868,  received  the  news  of  the  final 
absorption  of  the  Polish  provinces  of  Russia  within  the  body 
politic  of  the  empire,  Mr.  Heilprin  contributed  to  the  Nation 
an  editorial  article  entitled  "Finis  Polonise,"  in  which  he 
reviewed  events  of  the  past,  as  was  his  custom  in  writing  at 
an  important  political  juncture.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
elsewhere  an  equally  clear  and  concise  account  of  the  various 
dismemberments  of  Poland,  and  of  the  conditions  surrounding 
both  the  severed  parts  and  their  spoliators. 

"  By  the  first  partition  of  Poland,  executed  in  1772-73  by 
Catharine,  Frederic  the  Great,  and  Maria  Theresa,  or  rather  her 
son,  Joseph  II.,  Russia  received  some  territories  of  the  Grand- 
Duchy  of  Lithuania  situated  on  both  sides  of  the  upper  Diina 
and  Dnieper,  and  now  included  in  the  governments  of  Vitepsk 
and  Mohilev;  Frederic  annexed  the  bulk  of  Royal  or  West 
Prussia  and  some  adjoining  parts;  Austria  took  the  extensive 
territories  now  forming  its  province  of  Galicia,  besides  some 
minor  ones.  The  second  partition,  in  1793,  gave  Catharine  the 
Lithuanian,  Volhynian,  Podolian,  and  Ukrainian  territories, 
now  forming  or  embraced  in  the  governments  of  Minsk,  Zhito- 
mir, Podolsk,  and  Kiev ;  Frederic  William  II.  took  Posen  and 
other  parts  of  Great  Poland,  Dantzic,  and  Thorn;  Austria  re- 
ceived no  share.  In  the  final  dismemberment  of  1795,  which' 
followed  the  insurrection  under  Kosciuszko,  Catharine  took  the 
remainder  of  Lithuania  and  Yolhynia  (Wilna,  Grodno,  etc.) ; 
Francis  of  Austria  the  districts  lying  between  the  Bug,  the 
Vistula,  and  the  Pilica ;  and  Prussia  all  the  rest,  with  Warsaw, 
the  capital. 

For  twelve  years  the  name  of  Poland  remained  effaced  from 
the  map  of  Europe.  A  partial  restoration  took  place  in  1807, 
when  Napoleon,  having  vanquished  Prussia  by  the  battles  of 
Jena  and  Friedland,  and  compelled  her  to  accept  the  humili- 


28  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

ating  terms  of  the  treaty  of  Tilsit,  transformed  the  larger  part 
of  her  share  of  Poland  into  a  Duchy  of  Warsaw,  at  the  head 
of  which  he  placed  Frederic  Augustus  of  Saxony.  This  new 
Polish  state,  enlarged  in  1809  by  parts  of  Austrian  Poland,  fell 
on  the  retreat  of  its  founder  from  the  disastrous  campaign  of 
1812  in  Russia,  and  was  held  during  the  deliberations  of  the 
Congress  of  Vienna  by  the  armies  of  Czar  Alexander  I.  By 
the  final  decision  of  that  assembly  Prussia  received  back  a  part 
of  her  share,  including  the  present  Grand-Duchy  of  Posen,  while 
the  bulk  of  the  Duchy  of  Warsaw  was  annexed  to  Russia,  as  a 
semi-autonomous  constitutional  state,  under  the  name  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Poland,  the  river  boundaries  of  which  were  the 
Niemen,  the  Bug,  and  the  Prosna.  Only  the  town  of  Cracow, 
with  its  surrounding  territory,  was  constituted  a  nominally  in- 
dependent Polish  state,  under  a  republican  form  of  government. 
The  arrangements  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  to  which  some 
of  the  powers  gave  their  adhesion  only  with  reluctance,  thus 
contemplated  and  stipulated  the  continued  existence  of  the 
Polish  nationality,  but  only  on  the  ruins  of  Poland. 

The  aim  and  hope  of  the  quartered  nation,  however,  continued 
to  be  the  recovery  of  its  national  life  and  independence  through- 
out the  vast  domain  of  its  ancient  fatherland.  This  natural 
tendency,  which  constantly  manifested  itself  in  agitations  and 
demonstrations  of  a  more  or  less  threatening  character,  soon  led 
to  reactionary  and  repressive  measures  on  the  part  of  the 
dividing  powers,  in  violation  of  promises,  constitutional  pledges, 
and  treaty  stipulations.  The  total  or  partial  denationalization 
of  the  Polish  provinces  gradually  became  the  object  of  the 
rulers,  conspiracy  the  weapon  of  the  oppressed.  Bloody  insur- 
rections and  cruel  chastisements  were  everywhere  the  result. 
The  Russian  Kingdom  of  Poland  had  its  grand  revolutionary 
tragedy  of  1830-31,  which  cost  it  its  national  army  and  its 
constitution,  in  spite  of  marvels  of  heroism;  Galicia,  its  out- 
break in  February,  1846,  immediately  stifled  in  the  blood  of 
its  nobility,  victims  of  a  terrible  jacquerie;  Cracow,  its  short 
revolutionary  drama  of  the  same  month,  which  terminated  with 
the  annihilation  of  the  republic  and  the  annexation  of  its  terri- 
tory to  Galicia,  in  open  violation  of  the  treaties  of  Vienna  and 
in  spite  of  protests  from  France  and  England;  Posen,  its 


"FINIS   POLONLE"  29 

wild  fight  of  1848,  under  the  lead  of  Mieroslawski,  after  which 
it  remained,  bleeding  and  exhausted,  a  helpless  prey  of  the  Ger- 
manizing power;  Kussian  Poland,  again,  its  desperate  insur- 
rection of  1863-64,  which  drenched  its  soil  with  blood  hope- 
lessly shed,  filled  Siberia  with  victims,  and  in  some  provinces 
almost  entirely  broke  the  Polish  element. 

The  territories  occupied  by  Russia  on  occasion  of  the  first 
dismemberment  became  denationalized  almost  as  soon  as  de- 
tached from  their  former  connection,  this,  too,  having  been  based 
on  the  right  of  conquest,  and  the  bulk  of  the  population  being 
more  Russian  than  Polish.  Nearly  the  same  was  the  case  with 
the  provinces  annexed  by  Catharine  in  1793.  Neither  was  the 
predominant  religion  in  these  two  divisions  —  the  Greek  United 
Church  —  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  Russification.  Descend- 
ants of  Orthodox  Greeks  more  or  less  violently  converted  by 
Polish  masters  or  Jesuits,  a  part  of  the  inhabitants  were  easily 
persuaded  or  compelled  to  return  to  the  creed  of  their  fore- 
fathers, wholesale  conversions  taking  place  chiefly  during  the 
reign  of  Czar  Nicholas.  It  was  also  this  monarch  who  made  the 
first  efforts  for  denationalizing  the  Lithuanian  and  Volhynian 
provinces  occupied  in  the  third  partition,  efforts  contrary  to  the 
policy  of  his  milder  predecessor,  Alexander,  and  stimulated  by 
the  dangers  with  which  the  widespread  rising  of  1830-31  threat- 
ened the  integrity  of  the  Russian  empire.  These  efforts  were 
successful  among  the  mixed  rural  population,  but  less  so  in  the 
towns,  in  which  the  pure  Polish  element  prevails.  But  deter- 
mined, as  he  was,  to  crush  any  new  attempt  at  insurrection  with 
the  iron  hand,  Nicholas  never  endeavored  to  destroy  or  impair 
the  Polish  nationality  in  the  Kingdom  of  Poland,  created  by 
the. Congress  of  Vienna,  though  he  arbitrarily  abrogated  its  con- 
stitution. He  left  it  its  separate  existence,  under  a  viceroy, 
with  a  separate  administration,  separate  finances,  and  a  tariff 
of  its  own,  protective  even  against  the  competition  of  the  other 
provinces  of  the  Russian  empire.  The  language  of  the  adminis- 
tration, of  the  courts,  of  the  schools  remained  the  Polish,  the 
rights  of  the  Catholic  clergy  remained  almost  unimpaired. 

The  early  years  of  the  reign  of  his  successor,  Alexander  L, 
were  characterized  by  still  greater  mildness  in  the  government 
of  the  Kingdom.  But  when  the  stimulus  given  to  patriotic  en- 


30  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

thusiasm  by  the  inspiration  of  a  reviving  press,  and  still  more 
by  the  events  of  1859  and  1860  in  Italy,  followed,  as  they  were, 
by  liberal  movements  in  Hungary  and  Galicia,  brought  about 
a  series  of  national  demonstrations  in  favor  of  a  reunion  of  all 
Polish  provinces  under  a  free  government ;  when  the  exertions 
of  Marquis  Wielopolski  to  win  over  his  countrymen  to  the  cause 
of  Panslavism  under  the  lead  of  the  Czar  not  only  proved  a 
failure,  but  led  to  outbreaks  of  repugnance,  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment soon  again  returned  to  measures  of  vigorous  repression. 
The  most  violent  of  the  latter,  the  wholesale  conscription  of  the 
patriotic  youths  of  the  cities,  finally  led  —  perhaps  not  unin- 
tentionally —  to  the  internecine  struggle  of  1863-64.  Of  small 
beginnings,  this  desperate  strife  soon  assumed  vast  proportions, 
and  when  transient  threats  of  interference  by  France,  England, 
and  even  Austria  added  to  its  magnitude,  the  existence  of  Russia 
as  the  great  empire  of  Eastern  Europe  seemed  for  a  moment  to 
be  again  in  question.  This  unwonted  hostile  interference,  the 
religious  character  which  the  struggle  assumed  in  some  parts, 
its  extent  and  duration,  the  appeals  of  an  otherwise  liberal 
prince,  of  a  frantic  priesthood,  and  a  no  less  frantic  press,  lately 
unshackled  —  all  combined  to  exasperate  the  Russian  people  to 
a  degree  never  experienced  before.  Aristocrats  and  freedmen, 
serviles  and  radicals,  vied  with  each  other  in  sacrifices  for  their 
empire,  religion,  and  Czar ;  the  threats  of  foreign  powers  were 
spurned,  and  the  insurrection  was  crushed.  But  this  time  the 
mere  crushing  out  of  rebellion  was  not  deemed  sufficient.  The 
Polish  nationality  altogether  was  now  doomed,  by  the  demands 
of  the  Russian  people  as  well  as  by  the  undisguised  policy  of  the 
Government,  to  total  and  final  destruction.  The  gibbet,  Siberia, 
confiscation,  conscription,  and  all  the  means  of  refined  despotism 
aided  by  popular  fanaticism,  were  to  do  the  work  —  and  it  is 
now  being  executed  without  mercy,  without  regard  for  treaties, 
for  national,  religious,  or  private  rights,  or  for  the  opinion  of 
the  world. 

In  Lithuania  and  Volhynia  this  work  —  of  expatriation,  dis- 
possession, and  denationalization  —  is  nearly  complete.  It  was 
executed  by  a  few  bold,  rapid,  and  deadly  strokes.  In  the 
Kingdom  of  Poland,  however,  where  the  task  is  immensely 
vaster  and  the  difficulties  immeasurably  greater,  no  less  sweep- 


"FINIS   POLONLE"  31 

ing  but  milder  measures,  more  numerous  and  subtler  means, 
had  to  be  used  for  the  achievement  of  the  same  object.  Land- 
mark after  landmark  was  removed.  The  Catholic  clergy  were 
deprived  of  a  large  part  of  their  institutions,  and  subjected  to 
a  rigorous  surveillance;  the  nobility  were  deprived  of  all  in- 
fluence in  public  affairs;  all  higher  offices  were  filled  with 
Russians;  the  Russian  language  replaced  the  Polish  in  the 
bureaus,  the  courts,  and  the  schools;  the  Polish  press  was 
gagged;  every  branch  of  the  administration  was  remodelled 
after  the  Russian  pattern;  the  government  and  district  divisions 
were  repeatedly  altered  and  received  new  names;  the  internal 
tariff  lines  were  abolished ;  the  financial  system  was  assimilated 
to  the  Russian;  the  separate  existence  of  the  Kingdom  was 
made  first  entirely  illusory,  and  then  altogether  nominal;  and 
now,  we  are  informed,  even  the  shadow  of  its  existence  has  been 
swept  away,  even  the  name  has  been  effaced;  Russia  contains 
no  Poland  any  more,  no  Polish  provinces,  but  among  her  gov- 
ernments some  hewn  out  of  Polish  ruins. 

This  final  step  Russia,  we  believe,  would  have  delayed  longer, 
from  her  wonted  prudence  and  slowness,  and  perhaps  also  from 
regard  for  public  opinion  abroad,  had  not  recent  changes  in  the 
political  complexion  of  Eastern  Europe,  consequent  on  the  war 
of  1866,  quickened  her  impulses  and  actions.  It  is  true  the 
late  increase  of  Prussia's  power  has  not  altered  the  attitude  of 
that  monarchy  towards  Russia,  and  least  of  all,  perhaps,  in  the 
Polish  question;  and  Bismarck,  with  his  well-known  cynicism 
a  la  Frederic  the  Great,  has  but  lately  declared  Poland  to  be 
a  phantom  living  only  in  heated  brains.  It  is  true  the  national 
position  of  the  Poles  in  Prussia  has  become  but  more  difficult 
and  more  untenable  for  the  enlargement  of  that  kingdom  and 
the  creation  of  the  North  German  Union.  But  the  sudden, 
thorough,  and  vital  metamorphosis  of  Austria  after  its  late 
defeat;  the  total  change  of  system  in  that  empire,  which  has 
placed  its  new  foundations  chiefly  on  the  sympathies  and  needs 
of  the  Hungarian  and  Polish  elements,  but  late  so  hostile  to  its 
existence;  the  reorganization  of  Galicia  on  a  Polish  national 
basis,  simultaneously  with  the  restoration  of  the  Hungarian  con- 
stitution; the  security  of  the  permanence  of  this  new  system 
which  lies  in  the  common  peril  to  those  nationalities  and  Austria 


32  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

in  Russia's  no-longer-hidden  Panslavistic  tendencies;  the  hos- 
tile attitude  of  Austria  in  the  Turkish  question,  backed,  as  she 
is,  by  the  sympathies  of  both  France  and  England;  the  ap- 
proaching crisis  on  the  Danube;  the  danger  of  a  general  con- 
flagration ;  and,  finally,  the  reviving  hopes  of  the  Poles  —  these 
considerations  urge  Russia  to  finish  her  work  in  her  Polish 
provinces  thoroughly  and  speedily ;  and  to  the  song,  '  Poland  is 
not  yet  lost,'  already  resounding  anew  on  her  border,  she  hastens 
to  answer,  '  Finis  Polonise  '  I  To  prove  the  correctness  of  these 
words,  she  must  conquer  Galicia." 

THE  REFORM  MOVEMENT  AMONG  THE  JEWS 

Mr.  Heilprin's  article  on  "  The  Reform  Movement  among 
the  Jews,"  in  the  Nation  of  June  18,  1868,  affords  a  clear  in- 
sight into  his  intellectual  relations  to  Judaism,  whose  every 
manifestation  of  progressive  broadening  he  followed  with  keen 
interest : 

"  Judaism,  which,  in  spite  of  its  original  separatism,  could 
not  withstand  the  influence  of  Chaldean  civilization  during  the 
Babylonish  captivity,  and  of  Hellenic  philosophy  in  the  times 
of  the  Ptolemies;  which,  having  developed  its  austere  tal- 
mudical  shape  simultaneously  with  the  growth  of  Christianity, 
again  assumed  milder  and  more  philosophical  forms  when  the 
Caliphs  from  burners  of  libraries  became  collectors  of  literary 
treasures;  which,  following  this  new  course,  kept  pace  with 
Arabic  culture  from  the  Tigris  to  the  Guadalquivir;  which 
flourished  in  Provence  and  in  the  land  of  Dante  when  the 
vernacular  Romanic  tongues  commenced  blossoming  in  new 
literatures  —  Judaism  had  no  revival  in  the  times  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation.  Those  times,  the  centuries 
that  preceded  them,  and  the  centuries  that  followed,  belong  in 
many  respects  to  the  darkest  in  the  history  of  the  Jews.  Their 
bloody  persecution  during  the  Crusades  and  in  the  time  of  the 
black  plague,  their  banishment  from  England  and  France  in 
the  reigns  of  Edward  I.  and  Charles  VI.,  their  still  more  bar- 
barous expulsion  from  Spain  and  Sicily  in  the  year  of  the 
discovery  of  America,  and  from  Portugal  a  few  years  later, 


THE   JEWISH   REFORM  MOVEMENT          33 

were  not  only  destructive  to  their  prosperity,  but  also  to  their 
culture,  which  then,  in  Western  Europe,  was  approaching  a 
regenerating  crisis;  while  their  numbers  were  continually  in- 
creasing in  the  more  hospitable  and  tolerant,  but  still  less  civil- 
ized, Polish  and  Turkish  provinces.  Their  condition  grew  still 
worse  when  both  Poland  and  Turkey  commenced  decaying,  and 
Germany  became  the  bloody  theatre  of  desolating  wars  between 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism.  The  Christian  sects  seemed  to 
vie  with  each  other  in  oppressing  them.  And  the  complicated 
system  of  petty  tyranny  —  of  extortion,  exclusion,  and  humilia- 
ation  —  under  which  the  Jews  now  groaned  for  centuries  was 
more  destructive  to  their  intellectual  development  than  had  been 
their  more  sanguinary,  but  less  constant  and  systematic,  perse- 
cutions in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Even  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  Jews  lived  as 
strangers,  and  were  treated  as  enemies,  in  almost  all  the  Euro- 
pean countries  the  air  of  which  they  were  allowed  to  breathe. 
The  land  of  their  birth  was  to  them  a  land  of  captivity  or  exile 
(galuth),  as  Babylonia  had  been  in  ancient  times.  Its  language 
was  to  them  the  language  of  unholy  oppressors,  unworthy  to 
be  used  as  a  medium  for  sacred  rites  and  literature.  The  ver- 
nacular which  they  used  in  profane  things  or  in  translating 
Hebrew  texts  was  a  jargon,  mostly  German,  mixed  up  with 
Semitic  and  other  foreign  words  and  forms.  Spurned  and 
hooted  at  for  their  wretchedness,  and  slandered  as  enemies  of 
Christ  and  his  followers,  they,  in  their  turn,  despised  the  Chris- 
tians as  cruel  and  profligate  idol-worshippers,  and  withdrew 
from  their  communion  as  contaminating.  Modern  literature 
was  approached  by  them  only  with  fear  and  suspicion.  The 
sciences,  which,  with  the  exception  of  medicine,  offered  no  re- 
ward, neither  distinction  nor  position,  to  their  Jewish  votaries, 
were  regarded  as  humble  ancillw  of  the  holy  science  of  the  law 
(torah).  The  latter  study,  in  all  its  scriptural,  talmudical,  and 
rabbinical  vastness,  was  cultivated,  with  unparalleled  zeal  and 
perseverance,  as  the  only  source  of  true  mental  culture,  spiritual 
felicity,  and  worldly  honors.  The  study  of  the  law  and  the 
observance  of  its  numberless  rites  and  obligations  consumed  a 
considerable  portion  of  every  educated  or  half-educated  Jew's 
life.  The  wretchedness  and  bitterness  of  that  life  were  borne 


34  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

with  resignation  as  well-deserved  chastisements  for  sins  and 
transgressions,  and  softened  by  the  recollections  of  a  marvellous 
national  past  and  the  expectation  of  a  Messianic  future.  There 
were  exceptions  of  every  kind,  but  they  were  rare. 

Those  exceptions,  however,  became  more  and  more  numerous 
with  the  general  progress  of  enlightenment  and  of  the  spirit 
of  toleration  in  the  age  of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  Hume  and 
Gibbon,  Frederic  the  Great  and  Joseph  II.,  Lessing  and  Men- 
delssohn. But  it  is  the  latter  period  of  the  last-named  philos- 
opher's life  with  which  the  modern  era  in  the  intellectual  and 
religious  history  of  the  Jews  begins.  What  Luther  was  to 
Christian  Germany  and  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Men- 
delssohn became  to  his  co-religionists  in  the  eighteenth.  What 
Luther's  translation  of  the  Bible  worked  among  Christians, 
Mendelssohn's  German  Pentateuch,  in  Hebrew  letters,  with 
commentaries  and  an  introduction,  achieved  among  the  Jews. 
]$Tot  that  the  Jewish  philosopher  advocated  or  intended  a  reform 
of  the  synagogue.  Both  his  modesty  and  his  principles  opposed 
such  an  enterprise.  The  immense  influence  he  exercised  upon 
his  people  was  due  to  his  eminence  as  a  writer  and  thinker, 
which  attracted  the  admiration  of  all  and  the  emulation  of 
many;  to  the  Socratic  charms  of  his  conversation,  which  made 
his  circle  in  Berlin  a  focus  of  enlightenment ;  to  his  liberal  views 
on  church  and  state  and  on  freedom  of  thought,  as  enunciated 
in  his  '  Jerusalem ' ;  to  his  theory,  expounded  in  the  same  work 
and  so  welcome  in  an  age  of  rationalism,  that  Judaism,  which 
was  a  national  religion,  inculcated  only  practices  leading  to 
ideas,  but  promulgated  no  dogmas;  to  the  revival  among  his 
oo-religionists,  through  his  Hebrew  writings  and  German  trans- 
lations, of  the  taste  for  Biblical  criticism,  for  exact  and  pure 
diction,  for  the  beautiful  and  aesthetic  in  connection  with  the 
sacred,  which  had  adorned  the  golden  age  of  their  forefathers 
in  Spain  and  Provence;  to  the  powerful  co-operation,  in  this 
literary  revival,  of  his  Jewish  friends  or  disciples,  the  great 
Hebraists  Wessely,  Euchel,  and  others,  in  whom  the  kindled 
imagination  of  the  younger  Hebrew  students  saw  new  Hallevis 
and  Kimhis  side  by  side  with  a  new  Maimonides;  to  the  no 
less  powerful  co-operation  of  his  numerous  Christian  co-laborers 
on  the  field  of  German  literature,  and  especially  of  Lessing, 


THE    JEWISH   REFORM   MOVEMENT          35 

in  dispelling  anti-Jewish  prejudices,  and  thus  making  it  possible 
to  the  Jews  to  issue  from  their  isolation  and  occupy  a  place 
among  the  enlightened  of  other  nations;  and,  finally,  to  the 
Jewish  and  moral  purity  of  his  life,  which  taught  the  Jews 
that,  even  after  Spinoza,  Judaism  and  philosophy  were  not 
irreconcilable,  and  the  Christians,  that  a  faithful  disciple  of 
the  rabbis  could  serve  as  a  model  for  a  '  Nathan  the  Wise.'  It 
is  true  bigotry  and  prejudice  on  both  sides  but  slowly  yielded 
the  ground;  some  rabbis  fulminated  against  him  whom  others 
revered  as  the  third  Moses  —  the  lawgiver  being  the  first,  and 
Maimonides  the  second  —  and  even  the  Voltairean  Frederic 
crossed  out  his  name  on  a  list  of  proposed  members  of  the  Berlin 
Academy ;  but  when  that  monarch  and  his  Schutzjude  died  — 
both  in  1786  —  freedom  of  thought  and  free  thought  had  made 
immense  strides.  The  '  inalienable  rights  of  man '  had  been 
proclaimed  in  the  New  World;  they  were  going  to  be  promul- 
gated, in  a  more  terrific  revelation,  to  the  Old. 

The  Abbe  Gregoire  carried  the  equality  of  the  Jews  in  the 
French  Constituent  Assembly.  The  armies  of  France  carried 
it  into  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  into  Holland  —  long  a  refuge 
to  persecuted  Jews  —  and  across  the  Rhine  and  the  Alps.  Even 
where  equality  was  not  granted,  the  condition  of  the  Jews  was 
gradually  ameliorated.  They  ceased  to  be  considered  as 
strangers,  and,  what  was  more  important,  they  gradually  ceased 
to  consider  themselves  as  such.  A  desire  for  political  and  social 
disenthralment  added  fuel  to  the  already  kindled  desire  for 
mental  self-regeneration.  This  double  movement  among  the 
Jews,  which  from  the  fatherland  of  Mendelssohn  radiated  into 
the  adjoining  countries,  was  not  only  effective  in  ripening  a 
vast  number  of  individual  talents  and  capacities,  soon  to  be 
distinguished  in  various  fields  of  literature,  science,  and  art, 
but  also  productive  of  public  reforms  in  congregational  life, 
schools,  and  synagogues.  Wessely  and  his  friends,  the  learned 
and  brilliant  writers  of  the  Measseph  ('  Gatherer '),  gave  a 
powerful  impulse  to  educational  reform,  and  met  with  the 
hearty  co-operation  of  Friedlander,  Herz,  and  Jacobson,  Jews 
distinguished  by  wealth,  refinement,  and  social  position,  who 
carried  the  agitation  also  into  other  fields. 

The  question  of  religious  reform  was  the  highest,  the  gravest, 


36  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

and  the  hardest  of  solution.  The  want  of  it  began  to  be  seri- 
ously felt,  but  on  what  principle,  in  what  spirit,  and  how  far 
it  was  to  be  carried,  were  questions  in  answering  which  opinions 
differed  widely.  The  bulk  of  the  Jews  at  that  time  —  as  is  still 
now  the  case  in  Poland  —  consisted  of  strict  believers,  to  whom 
the  least  and  last  rabbinical  injunction  was  equally  divine  with 
the  Decalogue,  and  whose  faith  in  a  future  Messianic  restora- 
tion was  no  less  firm  than  their  belief  in  monotheism;  others 
were  more  or  less  strict  conformists  from  habit,  from  love  for 
the  more  essential  parts  of  Judaism,  or  from  repugnance  to  the 
trinitarian  and  similar  dogmas  of  Christianity;  still  others, 
whose  number  was  daily  increasing,  were  only  nominal  Jews, 
having  given  up  all  religious  practice  from  conviction,  indiffer- 
entism,  or  light-mindedness;  and  finally,  not  a  few,  yielding 
to  outer  pressure,  and  despairing  of  the  future  of  their  people, 
were  daily  abandoning  the  faith  of  Israel  to  seek  repose  or 
emoluments  in  the  shade  of  the  cross.  Mendelssohn  seemed  to 
have  expected  a  remedy  for  this  condition  of  affairs  only  from 
the  influence  of  enlightenment  upon  the  individual  Jews,  each  of 
whom  was  to  save,  first,  his  freedom  of  thought,  and  then  his 
conscience  as  well  as  he  could.  Wessely,  an  enlightened  but 
zealous  rabbinist,  demanded  the  purification  of  Judaism  on  the 
strictest  orthodox  principles,  chiefly  by  means  of  education. 
Others,  like  Jacobson,  a  man  of  the  younger  generation  and  of 
the  world,  agitated  for  a  thorough-going  reform  of  the  ritual. 
The  Kantian  philosopher,  Bendavid,  proposed  the  total  aban- 
donment of  all  ceremonial  parts  of  Judaism,  which,  under  en- 
tirely altered  circumstances,  he  argued,  had  lost  their  efficiency 
for  good,  and  were  only  a  dead  weight  on  pure  Mosaic  mono- 
theism. And,  driven  on  by  a  still  more  violent  current  of  ration- 
alistic opinion,  Friedlander  even  went  so  far  as  to  ask  in  an 
'Epistle'  to  a  distinguished  Christian  theologian,  Teller,  for 
reasonable  terms  under  which  conscientious  liberal  Jews  could 
join  the  Church.  Most  of  these  early  attempts,  however,  meet- 
ing with  no  encouragement  on  the  part  of  the  Jewish  people 
as  well  as  of  the  governments,  hardly  led  to  any  immediate 
result.  The  time,  too  —  that  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  —  was 
decidedly  adverse  to  movements  of  this  kind,  though  by  its 
crushing  power  it  worked  wonders  in  transforming  the  formerly 


THE    JEWISH   KEFOKM   MOVEMENT          37 

so-despised  Jews  of  Central  Europe  into  active,  energetic,  and 
often  leading  member  of  modern  society.  When  peace  re- 
turned, and  literature  and  science,  art  and  commerce,  revived, 
single  Jews  soon  became  conspicuous  everywhere,  some,  it  is 
true,  only  Jews  by  name,  like  the  composers,  Moscheles,  Meyer- 
beer, and  Halevy,  and  others  even  nominal  Christians,  like 
Heine,  Borne,  and  Gans.  Jewish  congregational  life,  too,  as- 
sumed a  new  aspect.  Sermons  in  pure  living  idioms,  vocal 
music  of  a  modern  style,  and  here  and  there  an  organ,  were 
heard  in  the  synagogues;  catechisms  and  other  manuals  elabo- 
rated on  modern  principles  were  introduced  in  the  schools.  A 
kind  of  general  reform  had  taken  place  in  France,  consisting 
mainly  of  a  declaration  of  radical  Jewish  principles  by  a  so- 
called  French  Sanhedrim,  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of 
Napoleon,  but  also  involving  a  systematic  congregational  organ- 
ization with  a  leading  central  consistory  for  the  whole  of  France. 
Jewish  literature,  in  the  stricter  sense  of  the  term,  now  took 
a  fresh  start.  Of  the  vast  number  of  writers,  chiefly  in  German 
and  Hebrew,  who  flourished  during  the  first  two  decades  after 
the  Napoleonic  era,  we  can  mention  here  only  a  few  of  the  most 
conspicuous:  Jost,  the  author  of  various  comprehensive  his- 
tories of  the  Jews  and  of  Judaism;  the  Galician,  Eapoport, 
whose  biographico-critical  masterpieces,  contributed  to  the  Bik- 
Icurey  Haittim  ('  First-Fruits  of  the  Times'),  may  be  said  to 
have  created  a  new  literature ;  Zunz,  who  in  his  l  Gottesdienst- 
liche  Vortrage  der  Juden  '  showed  himself  a  worthy  disciple,  if 
not  a  rival,  of  Rapoport ;  Eeggio,  the  author  of  '  Hattorah  veha- 
Philosophia  '  ('  The  Law  and  Philosophy '),  and  of  some  more 
valuable  minor  works ;  and  S.  D.  Luzzatto,  of  the  Padua  Rab- 
binical College,  chiefly  renowned  as  Biblical  critic  and  Aramaic 
scholar.  These  were  closely  followed  by  a  new  generation  of 
literati,  to  the  most  eminent  of  whom  belong  Geiger,  Sachs, 
Frankel,  Philippson,  Fiirst,  Munk,  Franck,  and  Gratz,  all 
Germans  by  birth.  Independent  criticism  searched  and  ran- 
sacked every  corner  and  remnant  of  the  Jewish  past.  Numer- 
ous important  periodicals  were  started.  The  Kerem  Hemed 
('  Lovely  Vineyard ')  took  the  place  of  the  Bikkurey  Haittim, 
to  be  succeeded  in  its  turn  by  the  more  radical  Halutz  ('  Van- 
guard'), published  chiefly  by  Galician  writers,  and  by  the 


38  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

Carmel,  an  organ  of  the  Russian  Jews;  Riesser  published  his 
Jude;  Geiger,  his  Zeitschrift  fur  jiidische  Theologie,  and  simi- 
lar periodicals ;  Philippson,  his  Allgemeine  Zeitung  des  Juden- 
thums;  Fiirst,  his  Orient;  Cahen,  the  Archives  Israelites  de 
France;  Frankel,  his  Monatschrift  —  not  to  mention  a  multi- 
tude of  other,  mostly  short-lived,  journals  in  Hebrew  and 
various  living  tongues. 

While  this  progress  in  literature  was  going  on,  partly  pro- 
moting and  partly  following  the  progress  of  Jewish  political 
emancipation,  the  cause  of  religious  reform,  too,  was  advanced, 
first  feebly,  but  afterwards  more  powerfully  by  Geiger,  who  in 
1835  took  the  lead  in  a  movement  for  the  regeneration  of 
rabbinical  Judaism  through  a  rational  and  liberal  development 
of  its  own  spirit.  In  this  he  was  aided  by  Philippson,  by 
powerful  synagogue  orators  like  Salomon  and  Mannheimer,  and 
by  numerous  rabbis,  of  whom  Holdheim  soon  outstripped  his 
master.  This  movement  culminated  in  the  three  rabbinical 
synods  of  Braunschweig,  Frankfort,  and  Breslau  in  1844,  1845, 
and  1846,  which  adopted,  among  others,  resolutions  confirming 
those  of  the  Napoleonic  Sanhedrim,  and  advocating  considerable 
changes  in  the  liturgy,  in  sacramental  and  marriage  rites,  and 
in  the  observance  of  the  holidays,  all  tending  to  harmonize  the 
religious  life  of  the  Jew  with  his  civil  life  and  with  the  ideas 
of  the  age.  This  agitation  met  with  a  storm  of  opposition  from 
various  quarters.  Some  assailed  it  as  heretical,  and  in  spirit 
or  tendency  subversive  of  all  Judaism ;  others,  as  a  slow,  timid, 
and  double-faced  movement,  which,  while  pretending  to  be  both 
rabbinical  and  rational,  was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 
Hirsch  and  other  orthodox  scholars  attacked  it  with  the  weapons 
both  of  erudition  and  sarcasm,  while  reform  associations  in 
Frankfort,  Berlin,  and  elsewhere  just  as  loudly  declared  their 
disapproval  on  opposite  grounds,  and,  under  the  lead  of  men 
like  Creizenach,  Holdheim,  Bernstein,  and  Stern,  openly  re- 
nounced all  allegiance  to  the  Talmud,  repudiated  all  hope  of 
Jewish  national  restoration,  rejected  almost  all  the  ceremonies 
as  dead,  and  generally  made  the  Sunday,  instead  of  the  Satur- 
day, their  day  of  worship.  Revelation,  if  not  ignored  as  purely 
dogmatical,  was  by  most  reformers  accepted  only  in  a  rational- 
istic sense.  Behind  Geiger  and  his  associates,  though  still  in- 


KIRK'S   "CHARLES  THE   BOLD"  39 

clined  towards  reform,  remained  Frankel,  while  other  enlight- 
ened theologians,  like  Rapoport,  seemed  still  to  occupy  the  stand- 
point of  Mendelssohn,  and  cautiously  avoided  the  arena.  Gen- 
erally, however,  the  discussions  were  animated  and  often  violent, 
leading  to  dissensions  and  splits  in  the  congregations,  and  not 
rarely,  also,  to  interference  by  the  government.  The  great 
political  events  of  1848-1850  for  a  time  quieted  the  animosities 
and  considerably  diminished  the  interest  in  these  struggles,  but 
they  have  since  been  resumed,  though  with  abated  vigor.  The 
questions,  the  tendencies,  the  differences  of  opinion  are  still  the 
same ;  a  harmonious  solution  is  still  far  remote. 

Germany  has  remained  to  this  day  the  central  theatre  of  the 
movement,  which  is  felt,  with  more  or  less  force,  from  Odessa 
to  San  Francisco,  and  from  Stockholm  to  Algiers.  In  France 
discussions  on  reform,  representing  all  shades  of  opinion,  have 
been  participated  in,  among  others,  by  Terquem,  Cahen,  Cerf- 
beer,  Cremieux,  Munk,  Franck,  and  Rodrigues,  but  with  little 
effect,  owing  to  the  religious  indifference  or  ignorance  of  the 
mass  of  French  Jews.  In  all  other  countries,  England  and  the 
United  States  not  excepted,  the  religious  as  well  as  literary 
movements  of  the  Jews  are  but  reflections  of  those  going  on  in 
Germany." 

CHARLES  THE  BOLD 

In  a  noteworthy  review  of  John  Foster  Kirk's  History  of 
Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy  (Nation,  June  25,  1868), 
we  find  a  remark  concerning  American  historians  to  which  Mr. 
Heilprin,  in  conversation,  occasionally  returned: 

"American  historiography,"  he  said,  "like  American  his- 
tory, has  its  starting  point  in  the  discovery  of  this  continent. 
Its  first  productions  —  be  the  cause  rational  choice,  predilection, 
or  accident  —  cluster  around  that  natural  base  as  if  around  a 
fountain-head,  from  which  its  streams  are  to  flow  through 
radiating  channels  in  various  directions.  Irving  takes  us  to 
Andalusia  to  witness  the  great  departure  from  Palos,  and  after 
carrying  us  across  the  sea  with  his  hero,  '  Christopher  Colum- 
bus/ and  across  the  new  continent  with  the  '  Companions  of 


40  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Columbus,'  he  returns  to  the  Hispano-Moorish  province,  studies 
and  sketches  the  '  Conquest  of  Granada,'  the  Moslem  stronghold, 
and  in  after  life  reaches  both  ends  of  his  double  course  in  his 
'  History  of  Mahomet  and  his  Successors  '  and  in  his  '  Life  of 
Washington.'  The  downward  western  course  is  more  amply 
'developed  by  Sparks,  Bancroft,  and  Palfrey,  but  Prescott  takes 
us  back  to  Spain  and  the  times  of  '  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,' 
to  descend  to  those  of  their  grandson,  Charles  V.,  in  his  '  Con- 
quest of  Mexico '  and  '  Conquest  of  Peru,'  and  finally  to  those 
of  their  great-grandson,  '  Philip  the  Second.'  Motley  takes  up 
this  line,  going  over  from  Charles  V.  and  Philip  of  Spain  to 
their  revolted  subjects  in  the  Low  Countries,  and  in  his  '  Rise  of 
the  Dutch  Republic '  and  the  '  History  of  the  United  Nether- 
lands,' describes  the  grandest  and  purest  struggles  of  Protestant- 
ism, the  further  grapplings  of  which  with  the  power  of  the 
house  of  Austria  he  intends  to  sketch  —  if  the  report  be  true  — 
in  a  history  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Kirk,  another  and  more 
intentional  continuator  of  Prescott,  goes  a  step  further  back- 
ward, ascending  to  an  earlier  period  of  the  history  of  the  Nether- 
lands, which  the  daughter  of  his  hero,  '  Charles  the  Bold,'  Mary 
of  Burgundy  —  the  grandmother  of  Charles  V.  —  was  to  bring 
over,  as  her  dowry,  to  the  house  of  Austria." 

NAPOLEOIT  I. 

We  have  an  interesting  glimpse  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  estimate 
of  Napoleon  I.  in  his  article  on  "  Bonaparte  in  Italy  " 1  (Nation, 
December  10,  1868). 

"  The  Imperial  author  of  the  Vie  de  Cesar  has  published  no 
.work  on  the  life  of  the  modern  Ca3sar,  his  uncle.  But  no 
elaboration  of  his  on  that  subject  could  be  as  meritorious  as  the 
grand  collection  of  Napoleon's  correspondence  —  political,  mili- 
tary, and  administrative  —  now  appearing  under  the  auspices 
of  an  Imperial  commission,  and  of  which  twenty-five  volumes 
ihave  been  published,  containing  about  twenty  thousand  pieces 
—  letters,  reports,  proclamations,  notes,  etc.  The  archives  not 

1  "  Ausgewahlte  Correspondenz  Napoleons  I.  Aus  dem  FranzSsischen 
fibersetzt  von  Heinrich  Kurz."  Vol.  I.  Hildburghausen.  1868. 


AN   ESTIMATE-  OF   NAPOLEON  41 

only  of  Trance,  but  also  of  Germany,  Russia,  Sweden,  Italy, 
and  other  countries,  and  numberless  private  collections,  have 
been  ransacked  for  the  benefit  of  that  extraordinary  publication, 
from  which,  however,  all  private  letters  of  the  founder  of  the 
French  Empire  —  and  probably  also  a  number  of  other  papers 
—  have  been  excluded.  On  the  other  hand,  all  papers  com- 
municated are  given  entire,  without  omission  or  alteration.  The 
value  of  such  a  collection  for  the  historian  is  obvious.  The  gen- 
eral reader  of  history,  however,  must  naturally  find  it  too  vast, 
and  both  on  account  of  its  details,  especially  in  military  matters, 
and  of  its  numberless  repetitions,  not  a  little  tedious.  To  bring 
its  contents,  free  of  these  defects,  within  the  reach  of  the  general 
reader,  Heinrich  Kurz  has  begun  the  elaboration  of  an  abridg- 
ment, based  on  critical  selection,  of  which  the  first  volume  is 
now  before  us,  embracing,  besides  some  introductory  and  some 
supplementary  letters,  four  hundred  pages  relating  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  Italian  campaigns  of  1796  and  1797,  the  most  bril- 
liant period,  perhaps,  in  the  eventful  career  of  the  great 
conqueror. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  state  that  four  hundred  selected  letters 
and  public  writings  of  Napoleon,  illustrative  of  such  a  period, 
form  an  intensely  interesting  and  highly  instructive  volume. 
Most  of  them  are  addressed  to  the  Directory;  some,  confiden- 
tially, to  Carnot;  some  to  French  generals  and  diplomats; 
some  to  the  princes  of  Italy,  the  Pope,  and  the  Emperor 
Francis ;  some  to  men  of  science  and  art ;  others,  in  the  form 
of  proclamations,  to  the  army.  The  youthful  warrior  and 
diplomat,  the  future  emperor  and  conqueror  of  Europe,  is 
almost  completely  depicted  in  them.  We  see  him  working, 
organizing,  marching,  and  conquering ;  we  watch  him  planning, 
scheming,  and  brooding;  we  hear  him  advising,  commanding, 
menacing,  negotiating,  and  cheating.  We  admire  his  military 
genius,  his  courage  and  energy;  the  keenness  of  his  intellect, 
the  maturity  of  his  ideas,  and  the  wonderful  vigor  of  his  words ; 
his  consummate  diplomatic  skill,  which  seems  almost  marvellous 
in  a  man  of  twenty-seven ;  his  prudence  and  patience,  of  which 
a  long  run  of  good  luck  and  the  unrestrained  habit  of  command- 
ing divested  him  in  after-life.  We  are  astounded  by  his  suc- 
cess; we  are  shocked  by  his  heartlessness.  From  the  foot  of 


42  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

the  Alps,  where  he  assumes  command  over  a  ragged,  famished, 
and  demoralized  army,  we  follow  him  to  Montenotte,  Millesimo, 
Dego,  Ceva,  Mondovi,  and  Lodi ;  to  Milan,  which  he  liberates ; 
to  Lonato,  Castiglione,  and  Bassano;  to  Arcola  and  Rivoli; 
to  Mantua,  which  he  forces  to  surrender;  through  Modena, 
Bologna,  and  the  Romagna,  to  Tolentino,  where  Pius  VI.  is 
compelled  to  purchase  peace;  across  the  Alps,  through  Gorz 
and  Klagenfurt,  to  Leoben,  where  the  Emperor,  trembling 
for  Vienna,  finally  agrees  to  preliminaries  of  peace  with  the 
French  Republic ;  back  to  Milan,  where  he  lords  it  over  Italy ; 
and  finally  to  Campo  Formio,  where  the  definitive  treaty  of 
peace  is  concluded  which  terminates  this  period,  a  treaty  by 
which  Francis  treacherously  sacrifices  parts  of  Germany,  and 
Napoleon  Venice.  And  all  this  belongs  to  the  history  of  one 
year  and  a  few  days  of  victory. 

Even  before  starting  on  his  march  into  Germany  Kapoleon 
could  thus  address  his  soldiers : 

"  You  have  conquered  in  fourteen  pitched  battles  and  in  seventy 
engagements;  you  have  captured  more  than  one  hundred  thousand 
prisoners,  five  hundred  field-guns,  two  thousand  heavy  cannon,  and 
four  pontoon  trains. 

"  The  contributions  imposed  upon  the  countries  conquered  by  you 
have  fed  and  paid  the  army  during  the  whole  campaign.  Besides 
this,  you  have  sent  the  minister  of  finance  thirty  millions  for  the 
relief  of  the  public  treasury. 

"  You  have  enriched  the  Paris  Museum  by  upward  of  three  hun- 
dred works  of  art,  masterpieces  of  ancient  and  modern  Italy,  to  pro- 
duce which  thirty  centuries  were  needed. 

"You  have  conquered  for  the  Eepublic  the  finest  regions  of 
Europe;  the  Lombard  and  Cispadane  Republics  owe  you  their  free- 
dom ;  the  French  banners  for  the  first  time  wave  over  the  shores  of 
the  Adriatic,  in  face  of  old  Macedon,  to  which  you  can  sail  in 
twenty-four  hours;  the  Kings  of  Sardinia  and  Naples,  the  Pope, 
the  Duke  of  Parma,  have  abandoned  the  coalition  of  our  foes  and 
sued  for  our  friendship ;  you  have  driven  the  English  from  Leghorn, 
from  Genoa,  and  from  Corsica." 

These  words,  which  tell  what  were  the  res  gestce,  also  tell  us 
how  the  nervus  rerum  gerendarum  was  obtained.  War  was  made 
to  support  war  by  a  system  of  merciless  extortion  which  differed 


AN   ESTIMATE    OF    NAPOLEON  43 

from  the  plunderings  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  invaders  per- 
haps only  in  the  manner  of  its  execution.  Poor  Italy,  whom 
Bonaparte  pretended  to  free,  while  he  was  ready  to  barter  away 
her  lands  and  people ;  whose  past  he  glorified  in  his  proclama- 
tions while,  in  his  reports,  he  spoke  of  her  living  sons  in  words 
of  intense  and  boundless  contempt  —  Italy  was  made  to  bleed 
from  every  pore.  Contributions,  paid,  being  paid,  or  to  be  paid, 
are  a  constant  theme  of  our  young  conqueror's  lucubrations. 
He  eagerly  grasps  every  opportunity  of  extorting  money.  He 
is  inventive  in  creating  opportunities.  He  plans  pretexts.  But 
he  does  it  all  in  a  very  polite  way;  he  bleeds  with  polished 
instruments.  He  certainly  is  no  Vandal  conqueror;  he  de- 
stroys no  works  of  art;  he  only  carries  off  the  best  ones.  He 
evinces  a  taste  not  only  for  statues  and  pictures,  but  also  for 
manuscripts  and  anatomical  collections,  of  which  he  sends  off 
a  part.  He  burns  no  temples;  he  only  empties  some  of  their 
treasures.  He  respects  the  superstitions  of  the  conquered,  and 
sends  the  Madonna  of  Loreto  unmutilated,  and  with  all  her 
precious  ornaments,  to  Paris.  He  sends  her  privately  to  the 
Directory,  some  of  the  members  of  which  may  have  particular 
regard  for  piously  decorated  Madonnas,  while  the  attention  of 
others  —  or  of  the  same  —  is  directed  to  the  merits  of  '  a  hun- 
dred carriage  horses,  the  finest  that  could  be  discovered  in 
Lombardy.'  Besides  all  this,  which  is  done  decently  and  syste- 
matically, by  order  of  Napoleon,  an  immense  deal  of  extortion 
is  done  by  a  swarm  of  authorized  and  unauthorized  commis- 
sioners and  agents  of  the  Directory,  who  infest  every  corner  of 
Northern  Italy,  and  whose  robberies,  peculations,  and  shame- 
lessness  the  general  hardly  finds  words  to  stigmatize.  The 
soldiers,  too,  in  spite  of  most  rigorous  regulations  and  frequent 
shootings,  manage  to  plunder  and  rob  on  their  own  account. 
At  an  early  stage  of  the  campaign  these  liberators  are  desig- 
nated by  their  leader  himself  '  an  army  of  brigands.' 

While  contributions  feed  the  army  and  gorge  the  Directory 
and  Paris  with  plunder,  a  military  reign  of  terror  keeps  Italy 
with  all  its  hostile  elements  —  princes,  priests,  nobles,  and  a 
monk-ridden  peasantry  —  in  awe  and  subjection.  What  that 
terrorism  is,  a  few  quotations  may  show.  An  outbreak  having 
taken  place  in  some  villages  of  the  Milanese,  and  an  order  to 


44  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

lay  down  arms  having  been  disobeyed,  a  proclamation  announces 
that  'the  generals  will  march  the  necessary  forces  to  subject 
them,  burn  them,  and  have  every  man  found  in  arms  shot.  All 
priests  and  all  nobles  who  remain  in  the  rebellious  communities 
will  be  arrested  as  hostages  and  sent  to  France.'  The  fate  of 
Binasco  and  Pavia  soon  after  proves  that  such  are  not  empty 
threats.  Some  Frenchmen  having  been  killed  at  Bosco,  General 
Berthier  is  directed  to  throw  the  council  of  the  place  into  prison, 
and  to  declare  that  if  they  refuse  to  name  the  guilty,  '  and  do 
not,  on  the  spot,  make  out  a  list  of  at  least  twelve  persons,'  they 
will  be  immediately  shot.  The  people  of  the  vicinity  of  Tortono 
are  guilty  of  a  similar  crime,  and  Napoleon  reports :  '  I  have 
had  fifteen  of  the  ringleaders  arrested,  tried  by  a  military  com- 
mission, and  shot '  —  the  names  having  been  obtained  in  the  way 
indicated  to  Berthier.  On  entering  the  Papal  dominion,  Na- 
poleon proclaims :  '  Art.  1.  Every  village  or  town  in  which 
alarm-bells  are  sounded  at  the  approach  of  the  French  army 
is  immediately  to  be  burnt  down,  and  the  council  thereof  to  be 
shot.  Art.  2.  Every  community  in  whose  territory  a  French- 
man shall  be  murdered  shall  be  placed  under  martial  law;  a 
mobile  column  shall  be  sent  there,  hostages  taken,  and  an  ex- 
traordinary contribution  levied.  .  .  .'  And  yet  all  this  is  mild 
and  humane  when  compared  with  the  orders  issued  on  the  eve 
of  a  march  into  the  Tyrol,  orders,  however,  which  we  believe  to 
have  received  no  practical  application. 

And  yet  Bonaparte  was  neither  greedy  nor  cruel.  Nor  was 
he  by  nature  hypocritical  or  false,  though  his  Macchiavellism 
appears  no  less  great  than  his  heartlessness,  when  required  as 
a  means.  '  All  the  fortified  places  of  the  Venetian  Republic  on 
the  Adige,'  he  writes  to  the  Directory  as  early  as  July,  1796, 
(  are  now  in  my  hands.  You  may  find  it  suitable  to  begin, 
even  now,  a  slight  quarrel  with  the  Venetian  minister  at  Paris, 
so  that,  after  the  capture  of  Mantua  and  the  driving  of  the 
Austrians  from  the  Brenta,  I  may  find  a  greater  willingness 
to  listen  to  the  demand  for  a  few  millions  which  you  intend 
me  to  make/  '  Is  it  your  desire,'  he  writes  on  another  occasion, 
'  to  revolutionize  Piedmont  and  to  annex  it  to  the  Cispadane 
Republic  ?  The  means  to  do  this  without  war,  without  violating 
either  treaty  or  propriety,  is  to  blend  a  corps  of  ten  thousand 


AN   ESTIMATE    OF   NAPOLEON  45 

Piedmontese,  who  must  needs  be  the  kernel  of  the  nation,  with 
our  army,  and  to  make  them  partake  in  our  victories.  After  six 
months  the  King  of  Piedmont  shall  be  dethroned.  It  is  the 
spectacle  of  a  giant  embracing  a  dwarf  and  pressing  him  to  his 
bosom ;  he  suffocates  him,  but  he  cannot  be  accused  of  a  crime. 
The  result  is  owing  to  the  extraordinary  difference  in  their  or- 
ganizations/ He  natters  both  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor,  though 
he  heartily  hates  the  one  with  all  his  empire,  and  heartily  de- 
spises the  other,  '  the  old  fox,'  with  all  his  clergy.  He  speaks 
'  of  the  religion  of  our  fathers  '  to  Cardinal  Mattei,  and  assures 
the  French  minister  of  foreign  affairs  that  he  could  easily  man- 
age Egypt  with  armies  like  his,  to  whom  '  all  religions,  Moham- 
medans, Copts,  Arabs,  idolaters,  etc.,  are  alike/  Hating  anarchy 
and  Jacobinism  no  less,  or  even  more,  than  emigres  and  royalist 
conspirators,  he  yet  hesitates  not  to  stir  up  revolutionary  pas- 
sions against  clerical  influences,  to  inspire  the  Italians  with 
'  fanaticism  against  fanaticism.'  He  vaunts  the  conservatism 
of  the  army,  and  incites  Barras  to  commit  a  coup  d'etat.  Of 
course,  all  this  is  done  in  the  interest  of  the  French  Republic, 
of  '  the  greatest  of  nations/  and  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
year  III.,  and,  if  we  believe  his  repeated  assertions,  from  the 
purest  of  motives  and  without  personal  ambition,  as  he  longs 
to  retire  into  private  life,  preferring  peace  to  glory,  and  looking 
for  reward  in  his  '  conscience  and  the  opinion  of  posterity/ 

But  although  no  glimmer  of  conscience  or  moral  feeling,  in 
the  stricter  meaning  of  the  word,  is  to  be  found  in  all  these 
hundreds  of  letters,  a  strong  sense  of  the  noble,  the  decorous, 
and  even  the  virtuous,  is  almost  everywhere  perceptible,  no  less 
than  an  intense  contempt  for  everything  sordid,  and  meanly 
selfish.  He  admires  patriotism  no  less  than  heroism.  He  speaks 
of  the  self-sacrifice  of  a  poor  washerwoman  with  the  same 
warmth  of  feeling  with  which  he  claims  acknowledgment  for 
the  brilliant  services  of  Berthier,  Augereau,  Joubert,  Victor, 
Lannes,  Marmont,  or  Junot.  He  writes  to  every  member  of 
the  government,  separately,  to  procure  relief  for  the  widow  of 
one  of  his  heroes.  Terrible  to  the  enemies  of  France,  he  is  yet 
free  from  personal  vindictiveness.  He  neither  belittles  the  deeds 
of  possible  rivals  —  though  he  betrays  his  dislike  for  Moreau  — 
nor  speaks  boastingly  of  his  own  achievements.  He  honors 


46  MICHAEL   HEILPRIX 

the  devotion  of  his  military  antagonists,  and  never  ridicules 
them  when  fallen.  Though  born  to  command,  his  tone  is  unas- 
suming, respectful  to  superiors,  and  almost  austerely  modest. 
He  is  dignified  even  when  flattering,  and  not  entirely  untruth- 
ful when  deceiving.  Men  of  science  or  literary  genius  he  treats 
with  great  distinction.  Altogether,  we  find  it  natural  that  many 
who  knew  him  at  that  time,  finding  in  him  the  talents  without 
the  vices  of  Casar,  were  inclined  to  exclaim,  '  Hie  erit  Scipio ! ' 
And  yet  his  ambition  even  then  was  soaring  over  all  Europe 
and  beyond  it.  He  was  planning  the  conquest  of  Egypt,  of 
Malta,  and  of  England.  He  offered  his  mediation  to  the  Swiss 
Cantons,  received  Hellenic  deputations,  formed  Polish  legions, 
and  exerted  himself  to  gain  the  favor  of  '  the  brave  Hungarian 
nation.'  Beyond  conquered  Corfu,  he  follows  in  his  thought 
the  shining  track  of  the  Macedonian;  he  will  penetrate  to  the 
Nile,  like  Alexander;  he  will  cross  the  Alps,  like  Hannibal 
—  he  will  cross  the  Rubicon,  like  Ceesar." 

Between  1868  and  18TO  Mr.  Heilprin  wrote  a  number  of  his- 
torical and  critical  articles  for  the  Nation,  the  most  important 
among  which  were  a  review  of  Kenan's  St.  Paul  and  two  papers 
on  Panslavism.  These  articles  embodied  the  results  of  profound 
studies,  and  their  value  has  remained  unimpaired  by  the  lapse 
of  time.  The  march  of  events  since  the  essay  on  "Panslav- 
ism" was  published  (Nation,  May  14  and  28,  1868)  has 
strikingly  verified  some  of  the  forecasts  made  therein.  It  is 
only  necessary  to  refer  to  the  growing  importance  of  the  Polish 
question  and  to  the  renewed  interest  in  Panslavism  evoked  by 
the  recent  annexation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  on  the  part 
of  Austria.  Both  the  articles  on  Panslavism  and  that  on 
Kenan's  St.  Paul  are  here  reproduced. 


PAWSLAVISM 
I 

Three  families  of  nations,  all  belonging  to  the  Indo 
European  grand-division  of  mankind,  the  Slavic,  the  Teutonic, 
and  the  Romanic,  can  be  said  to  rule  the  globe  in  our  times. 


PANSLAVISM  47 

They  may  be  designated  as  the  eastern,  the  north-western,  and 
south-western  branches  of  that  grand  stem,  into  which  countless 
centuries  of  growth  have  ramified  it,  and  around  which  cluster 
numerous  minor  offshoots  of  the  same,  as  well  as  some  detached 
from  different  trunks.  All  the  north  of  Asia,  from  Behring's 
Straits  and  the  mouth  of  the  Amoor  to  the  Ural,  and  almost 
all  Europe  east  of  the  Baltic  and  the  Adriatic,  and  of  a  wind- 
ing line  connecting  these  two  seas,  belong  to  the  Slavic  race, 
which  has  absorbed  or  entirely  overpowered  the  Finns,  Lithu- 
anians, Crimean  Tartars,  Circassians,  Bashkirs,  and  numerous 
other  tribes,  and  closely  encircles  the  Magyars,  Roumans, 
Albanians,  and  others.  The  rest  of  Europe  and  almost  the 
whole  of  America,  unequally  divided  into  northern  and  southern 
halves,  Australia,  parts  of  Africa  and  Southern  Asia,  and  almost 
all  the  islands  of  the  seas,  are  held  by  the  Teutonic  and  Romanic 
nations,  who  have  absorbed,  exterminated,  or  subjected,  among 
others,  the  Basques,  the  Celts,  the  aborigines  of  this  continent, 
the  Hindoos,  and  the  Malays.  Their  flags  float  triumphantly 
over  all  the  oceans.  The  Sultans  of  Turkey  and  Morocco,  the 
formerly  impenetrable  empires  of  Cathay  and  Japan,  yield  to 
their  dictates;  the  Arab  and  the  Egyptian  construct  their 
canals;  the  Kabyl  and  the  Abyssinian  vainly  oppose  their 
arms. 

Of  these  three  dominant  families  of  nations,  the  Teutonic  is 
throughout  in  a  flourishing  condition.  It  embraces  the  most  en- 
lightened and  progressive,  the  most  industrious  and  active,  the 
freest  and  richest  nations  of  the  earth.  Each  of  its  members  is 
independent  and  sovereign  in  the  land  it  inhabits.  All  enjoy 
self-rule  and  constitutional  freedom,  though  under  manifold 
forms :  republican  democracy  in  the  United  States  and  Switzer- 
land ;  democracy  combined  with  monarchy  in  Norway  and  Den- 
mark ;  liberal  aristocracy  in  England ;  and  mixed  constitutional- 
ism in  Holland,  Sweden,  and  Germany.  Although  some  of  these 
nations,  like  Holland  and  Sweden,  have  already  played  more 
conspicuous  parts  in  history  than  they  do  now,  none  is  in  a  con- 
dition of  internal .  decay ;  only  their  external  relations  are 
changed.  Almost  all  are  advancing  with  the  hope  of  a  still 
brighter  future.  Their  religion,  with  few  exceptions,  is  the 
Protestant. 


48  MICHAEL   HEILPRIJST 

The  Romanic  family  consists  mainly  of  nations  that  have 
passed  the  zenith  of  their  glory.  Some  of  them  show  evident 
marks  of  decay,  if  not  of  incurable  rottenness.  Such  are  Spain 
and  Portugal,  which,  after  centuries  of  world-wide  fame  and 
power,  have  nearly  succumbed  to  the  internal  infection  of 
bigotry,  pride,  and  luxury,  combining  to  produce  an  unparal- 
leled system  of  royal  and  clerical  despotism.  Their  former 
colonies,  now  independent  states,  founded  on  a  substratum  of 
an  inferior  race,  seem  to  be  decrepit  in  their  very  infancy. 
Italy  and  Roumania  struggle  hard,  and  not  without  foreign  aid, 
for  regeneration  after  ages  of  degeneracy.  France  alone,  the 
leading  Romanic  state,  stands  erect  and  powerful  in  the  fore- 
most rank  of  civilized  nations,  though,  as  many  believe,  on  the 
very  verge  of  decadence,  the  forecast  shadow  of  which  is  already 
traceable  in  the  character  and  spirit  of  her  people.  Most  of  the 
members  of  this  family  are  convulsed  by  frequent  revolutions, 
which  seem  only  to  displace  tyranny,  and  but  rarely  inaugurate 
a  normal  rule  of  freedom.  Their  movements  are  unsteady,  their 
aims  indefinite  and  vague,  their  culture  superficial.  Progress 
and  reaction  alternate,  each  running  into  excess.  Every  nation, 
however,  is  independent,  except  the  Roumanian,  which  is  auton- 
omous but  tributary.  The  Catholic  religion  prevails  in  all, 
with  the  same  exception. 

More  peculiar  still  is  the  general  aspect  of  the  Slavic  family. 
It  consists  not  of  nations  uniformly  free  and  advancing,  nor  of 
nations  decayed,  decaying,  or  in  the  throes  of  regeneration,  but 
of  one  great  overshadowing  empire,  and  of  a  large  number  of 
minor  peoples  and  tribes  whose  political  life  has  been  cut  short 
by  external  violence  before  internal  decay  set  in.  That  empire 
is  Russia,  which  contains  the  only  independent  Slavic  nation. 
The  western  and  southern  Slavi,  who,  during  the  great  migra- 
tion of  nations,  had  spread  as  far  as  the  lower  Elbe,  the  head- 
waters of  the  Danube  and  the  Drave,  and  beyond  the  Balkan, 
the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  and  even  the  Hellespont,  early  in  the 
Middle  Ages  founded  independent  kingdoms  and  principalities 
near  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  the  Adriatic,  and  the  Euxine,  on 
the  Vistula,  the  Elbe,  and  the  Danube,  and  on  both  sides  of 
the  Carpathians ;  but,  disunited  among  themselves,  often  fight- 
ing one  another,  and  feebly  organized,  they  gradually  receded 


PANSLAVISM  49 

before  mightier  neighbors,  and  finally  succumbed  to  the  superior 
culture  and  discipline  of  the  Germans,  or  to  the  impetuous 
valor  of  the  Hungarians  and  Turks,  Poland  alone  falling  under 
the  strokes,  chiefly,  of  a  Slavic  people,  the  Russian.  The  too 
far  advanced  Slavic  populations  almost  entirely  disappeared; 
those  established  between  the  Oder,  the  Elbe,  and  the  Saale, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Wends  in  Lusatia,  were  Germanized 
after  long  struggles ;  those  on  the  upper  Save,  Drave,  and  Mur 
shared  nearly  the  same  fate;  the  Great-Moravian  empire, 
founded  by  Svatopluk,  east  and  west  of  the  Carpathians,  fell, 
about  the  year  900,  under  the  sword  of  the  Magyars,  who  had 
then  for  the  first  time  entered  and  occupied  Hungary;  Croatia 
was  annexed  to  the  latter  country  about  the  beginning,  and 
Slavonia  about  the  middle,  of  the  twelfth  century ;  Serbia  waa 
conquered  on  the  battle-field  of  Kosovo,  in  1389,  by  Sultan 
Amurath  I. ;  Bulgaria  was  subdued  soon  after  by  his  son 
Bajazet,  and  Bosnia,  after  various  vicissitudes,  by  Solyman  the 
Magnificent,  in  1528 ;  Bohemia,  the  oldest  Slavic  kingdom,  vir- 
tually lost  its  independence  on  the  death  of  King  Louis  in  the 
battle  of  Mohacs  (1526),  fought  against  the  last-named  Sultan, 
when  for  a  second  time  it  reverted  to  the  house  of  Austria,  and 
it  lost  its  freedom  when,  after  the  battle  of  the  White  Mountain 
(1620),  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  II.  tore  its  charter  of  liberty, 
as  forfeited;  last  of  all,  Poland,  having  flourished  for  eight 
hundred  years  as  an  independent  and  mighty  kingdom,  was 
divided  by  three  neighboring  powers,  Russia,  Austria,  and 
Prussia,  toward  the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  all  its  subse- 
quent attempts  to  recover  its  independence  have  proved  futile 
and  self-destructive. 

When  Poland  fell,  all  national  pulsation  seemed  long  to  have 
ceased  among  all  other  Slavic  populations  of  the  west  and  south. 
The  Bulgarians,  Servians,  Bosnians,  and  Montenegrins  —  the 
latter  with  some  intervals  —  had  so  long  groaned  Under  the 
Turkish  yoke;  the  Croats  and  Slavonians,  the  Slovacks  in 
north-western,  the  Ruthenians  in  north-eastern,  and  the  Rascians 
in  southern,  Hungary,  had  so  long  been  ruled,  led,  or  oppressed 
by  the  Magyars ;  Dalmatia  had  become  so  much  Italianized  by 
Venetian  influences;  the  nobility  and  urban  populations  of 
Bohemia,  Moravia,  Silesia,  Styria,  and  Illyria  so  much  Ger- 


50  MICHAEL   HEILPRIST 

manized  under  the  house  of  Austria,  that  the  remembrance  of 
the  free  national  past  seemed  to  live  among  the  Slavi  of  all 
these  countries  only  like  "  an  ancient  lay."  Any  lingering  hope 
of  resurrection  appeared  to  most  observers  an  idle  dream.  But 
when  Polish  liberty  succumbed,  French  liberty  became  trium- 
phant over  all  its  enemies,  and  commenced  convulsing  Europe 
with  the  ideas  of  popular  rights,  independence,  and  national 
regeneration.  Shock  followed  shock.  From  the  Seine  and  the 
Tagus  to  the  Pruth  and  the  Niemen  the  existing  order  of  things 
was  shaken  to  its  foundations.  The  people  everywhere  became 
conscious  of  their  rights  and  power.  The  new  gigantic  struc- 
tures raised  by  victorious  France,  in  their  turn,  crumbled  under 
the  pressure  of  popular  enthusiasm.  The  people  fought  against 
Napoleon  in  Spain  and  in  Tyrol ;  the  people  were  appealed  to 
against  him  by  Czar  Alexander  and  by  Frederic  William  in  1812 
and  1813.  On  the  fall  of  the  great  conqueror,  the  people  almost 
everywhere  demanded  their  rights.  Spain,  Naples,  and  Pied- 
mont rose  to  strike  for  liberty  in  1820,  though  in  vain.  A 
Greek  hetairia  raised  the  standard  of  Hellenic  freedom  in 
Moldo-Wallachia ;  the  Peloponnesus  and  the  islands  followed, 
and  Hellas  revived.  Poles  and  Eussians  conspired,  separately 
and  jointly,  for  the  overthrow  of  despotism.  Another  regener- 
ating movement,  though  of  a  different  character,  begun  simul- 
taneously with  the  fall  of  Poland,  took  place  in  Hungary. 
Roused  from  a  long  slumber  by  the  centralizing  and  Germaniz- 
ing attempts  of  Joseph  II.  (1780-1790),  the  Magyars  not  only 
reasserted  their  national  autonomy  on  the  accession  of  his 
brother  and  successor,  Leopold  II.,  but  also  began  with  equal 
enthusiasm,  ability,  and  success  to  revive,  cultivate,  and  spread 
their  own  Turanian  tongue,  and  to  revindicate  for  it  the  place 
which  the  Latin  had  occupied  as  a  parliamentary,  scientific,  and 
international  medium  in  their  assemblies  and  public  institutions. 
All  these  movements  could  not  but  react  upon  the  Slavic  race, 
and  rekindle  the  latent  sparks  of  national  consciousness  even  in 
the  most  oppressed  and  most  neglected  of  its  members. 

Where  religion  aided  to  set  those  sparks  ablaze,  the  first  move- 
ments immediately  assumed  the  shape  of  insurrectionary  out- 
breaks. The  Servians  and  Montenegrins,  aided  or  instigated  by 
Russia,  were  the  first  to  strike  for  independence  —  the  former 


PANSLAVISM  51 

under  the  lead  of  Czerny  George  and  then  of  Milosh  Obreno- 
vitch,  the  latter  under  their  Vladika,  Peter  Petrovitch  I. — 
and,  fighting  long  and  bravely,  conquered  a  partial  national 
autonomy  even  before  the  outbreak  in  Greece  —  an  autonomy 
which  Servia,  under  the  sons  of  those  two  kneses,  has  not  only 
succeeded  in  defending,  but  also  in  considerably  enlarging. 
Next  followed  a  general  literary  movement,  aiming  at  a  revival 
of  all  the  Slavic  tongues  and  the  development  of  Slavic  litera- 
ture throughout  the  Austrian  empire  and  on  its  Turkish!  bor- 
ders. Of  this  movement  Pesth,  Agram,  Vienna,  Prague,  and 
Moscow  became  the  centres.  Journals,  schools,  libraries,  and 
archives  were  founded.  Eminent  writers,  like  the  Serb  Kara- 
jitch,  the  Slovacks  Kollar  and  Schafarik,  the  Moravian  Palacky, 
subsequently  historiographer  of  Bohemia,  and  the  Croat  Gaj, 
writing  in  various  Slavic  dialects  and  in  German,  not  only 
roused  the  spirit  of  their  compatriots  to  a  consciousness  of  their 
own  genius  and  the  knowledge  of  their  past,  but  also  attracted 
the  attention  of  Europe. 

But  the  respective  spheres  of  these  and  similar  writers  were 
too  narrow,  the  population  speaking  their  dialects  too  poor  and 
too  ignorant,  to  support  so  many  literatures  and  institutions. 
This  circumstance  was,  perhaps,  what  mainly  suggested  to 
Kollar  the  idea  of  a  union,  for  literary  purposes  at  first,  of 
all  the  Slavi.  In  a  German  work  on  "Literary  Eeciprocity 
between  all  the  Tribes  and  Dialects  of  the  Slavic  Nation" 
(Pesth,  1831),  he  endeavored  to  prove  to  the  Slavi  of  all 
countries  that  their  various  idioms,  of  which  the  Russian,  the 
Polish,  the  Bohemian  (or  Czechic),  and  the  Servian  are  the 
principal,  differed  no  more  from  each  other  than  did  the  Attic, 
the  Ionian,  the  ^olian,  and  the  Dorian  dialects  of  the  ancient 
Hellenic,  the  differences  of  which  did  not  prevent  the  Greeks 
from  developing  one  grand  literature  or  from  essentially  form- 
ing one  grand  nation.  The  same  path  of  glory,  he  argued  with 
fervor  and  eloquence,  was  open  to  the  Slavi.  The  institutions, 
the  literary  products,  the  idioms,  the  thoughts,  the  genius  of 
all  the  Slavi  had  only  to  become  the  common  property  of  all, 
and  they  would  excel  the  rest  of  the  modern  world  as  the 
Hellenes  excelled  all  other  nations  of  antiquity.  This  dazzling 
idea  was  received  with  acclamation  by  all  the  Slavi,  except  the 


52  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

Poles,  who,  having  risen  in  insurrection  against  Kussia  in  1830, 
were  just  bleeding  away  under  the  sword  of  the  only  inde- 
pendent Slavic  people.  But  when  the  struggle  was  over,  some 
of  their  exiles,  and  among  them  their  great  poet,  Mickiewicz, 
joined  in  the  general  chorus.  Literary  union  and  linguistic 
fusion  became  watchwords,  and  were  carried  into  effect  to  a 
certain  degree,  chiefly  among  the  Slavi  on  the  Save  and  lower 
Danube  and  on  both  sides  of  the  western  Carpathians.  Alpha- 
bets being  assimilated,  slight  grammatical  distinctions  dropped, 
and  words  exchanged,  the  dialects  of  Servia,  Croatia,  Slavonia, 
and  Dalmatia  were  nearly  melted  into  one  Illyrian  language, 
and  the  Czechic  became  the  common  tongue  of  the  Bohemians, 
Moravians,  and  Slovacks. 


II 

The  idea  of  Kollar,  thus  put  into  practice,  was  the  first  germ 
of  Panslavism.  From  a  literary  union  of  all  the  Slavi  there 
was,  in  thought,  only  one  step  to  a  political  union.  This 
slight  salto  was  soon  made  by  the  Slavic  agitators,  who  were 
secretly,  and  for  obvious  reasons,  aided  by  Russian  agents  and 
subsidies,  and  here  and  there  also  by  Austrian  agencies,  desirous 
to  counteract  the  growing  power  of  the  Hungarian  nationality. 
It  was  easy  to  prove  from  history  that  it  was  weakness  arising 
from  disunion  among  the  Slavi  which  had  subjected  them 
and  kept  them  subject  to  the  sway  of  the  Germans,  the 
Hungarians,  and  the  Turks;  that  it  was  through  union  alone 
that  they  could  revindicate  the  prominent  position  due 
them  by  right  of  numbers  and  by  right  of  history  among  the 
great  races  of  the  European  world.  Germany  and  Italy,  too, 
after  similar  experiences,  were  striving  for  union.  But  as  in 
Germany  and  Italy  two  opposite  courses  were  pursued,  by  vari- 
ous political  factions,  toward  the  same  aim  —  an  agitation  for 
democratic  union  through  revolution,  and  an  agitation  for 
monarchical  union  through  the  houses  of  Hohenzollern  and 
Savoy  respectively  —  so  the  Panslavistic  world  soon  split  into 
a  democratic  party,  aiming  at  a  republican  confederation  —  the 
result  of  a  general  revolution  —  and  a  Russian  party,  aiming 
at  a  union  created  and  headed  by  the  Czar.  The  democratic 


PANSLAVISM  53 

scheme,  which.'  could  be  achieved  only  by  the  total  or  partial 
breaking  up  of  Austria,  Prussia,  Russia,  and  Turkey,  and 
against  the  opposition  of  both  Germans  and  Magyars,  was  ad- 
venturous and  perilous  in  the  extreme,  and  almost  chimerical. 
The  other  was  decidedly  more  practical,  but  it  lacked  the  con- 
currence of  all  true  liberals  and  Poles,  who  dreaded  in  the  event 
of  its  success  the  final  absorption  of  Poland  and  all  other  Slavic 
nationalities  in  Russia,  the  victory  of  Czarism  over  all  its 
enemies,  a  centralism  worse  than  that  of  the  Roman  emperors, 
and  the  triumph  of  Eastern  barbarism  over  European  civi- 
lization. But  as  long  as  the  question  remained,  so  to  say,  a 
theoretical  one,  the  Panslavistic  movement  proceeded  almost 
in  harmony,  the  anonymous  author  of  the  "Pentarchy" 
(Leipsic,  1839) — an  agent  of  Russia  —  the  above-named 
Slavic  writers,  and  a  host  of  others,  among  whom  we  find 
the  Poles  Mieroslawski,  Libelt,  Wielopolski,  and  the  late 
Count  Adam  Gurowski,  contributing  to  its  advance  from 
various  stand-points. 

But  powerful  events  soon  made  this  Slavic  movement  one  of 
the  highest  importance.  The  revolutions  of  February  and 
March,  1848,  convulsed  the  west  and  centre  of  Europe,  shook 
the  thrones  of  Austria  and  Prussia,  and  gave  all  power  into 
the  hands  of  the  people.  In  Austria  the  Hungarians  were  the 
first  to  profit  by  this  change,  turning  it  to  the  advantage  both 
of  liberty  and  of  the  Magyar  nationality.  This  led  to  violent 
anti-demonstrations  on  the  part  of  the  Croats,  Slavonians,  and 
Rascians,  who  demanded  constitutional  changes  incompatible 
with  the  integrity  of  Hungary.  The  Austrian  government,  or 
rather  the  court  of  Vienna,  not  at  all  surprised  by  these  dis- 
sensions and  wranglings,  secretly  fanned  them  into  a  flame 
which  kindled  an  internecine  war  of  races,  in  which  the  Romanic 
Wallachs,  too,  took  part  against  the  Hungarians.  In  the  mean- 
while the  Poles  of  Posen  had  risen  against  the  Prussians,  and 
had  been  defeated.  Galicia,  exhausted  by  the  massacre  of  her 
nobles  in  1846,  remained  inactive.  The  Bohemians  now 
hastened  to  take  the  lead  in  the  Slavic  movement.  A  general 
Slavic  congress,  convoked  by  Palacky  and  others,  assembled  in 
Prague.  The  tendency  of  the  time  made  it  a  democratic  and 
revolutionary  gathering;  no  Russians,  except  exiles,  appeared. 


54  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

But  before  any  important  resolutions  could  be  formed  a  collision 
between  some  Czech  youths  and  the  Austrian  troops,  under 
Prince  Windischgratz,  led  to  a  bombardment  of  the  city,  the 
disarmament  of  the  Czechs,  and  the  dispersion  of  the  congress. 
Emboldened  by  this  victory  and  by  others  in  Italy,  the  Austrian 
government  now  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  Hungary,  and 
ordered  the  Ban  of  Croatia,  Jellachich,  to  invade  that  country 
at  the  head  of  a  Slavic  army.  The  Hungarian  constitution,  the 
only  sheet-anchor  of  liberty  in  Austria,  was  to  be  put  down  by 
semi-barbarous  Slavic  hordes.  At  this  critical  juncture  the 
chasm  which  separated  the  two  Panslavic  camps  became  ap- 
parent. The  Czechs,  deeming  it  possible  to  establish  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  Slavi  in  Austria,  declared  in  favor  of  the 
government,  defended  by  the  Croats  and  Rascians ;  the  Poles, 
burning  to  revenge  the  wrongs  of  1846  and  to  destroy  one  of 
their  three  oppressors,  flocked  to  the  banners  of  Hungary  and 
freedom.  And  thus,  throughout  the  Hungarian  war  of  1848 
and  1849,  Slavi  fought  against  Slavi.  The  first  practical  at- 
tempt at  Panslavism  ended  in  smoke  —  in  the  smoke  of  bloody 
battle-fields.  Russia  finally  decided  against  Bern,  Dembinski, 
and  Kossuth,  and  victorious  Austria  deceived  the  Croats, 
Rascians,  and  Czechs.  When  the  victory  was  complete,  Aus- 
tria's last  word  was  —  Germanization  without  liberty. 

But  Magenta  and  Solferino,  in  1859,  revenged  Temesvar  and 
Vilagos.  Hungary  was  to  be  conciliated,  or  the  empire  would 
perish.  The  House  of  Hapsburg  vacillated  and  hesitated,  until 
Koniggratz,  in  1866,  put  an  end  to  vacillation.  Both  Hungary 
and  Galicia  were  conciliated,  the  Magyar  and  Polish  elements, 
united  with  the  German,  forming  the  basis  of  the  liberal  system 
inaugurated  under  the  lead  of  Deak  and  Beust;  the  Czechs 
and  the  South-Austrian  Slavi  were  spurned.  The  Czechs,  who 
even  during  the  Polish  insurrection  of  1863—64  partly  sympa- 
thized with  Russia,  and  their  southern  allies,  who  had  been 
long  dreaming  of  a  South-Slavic  empire,  to  consist  of  parts 
of  Austria  and  parts  of  Turkey,  have  now  turned  their  eyes 
towards  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg  as  the  Mecca  and  Medina 
of  the  Slavic  world.  On  their  part,  the  Russian  people  and 
government,  exasperated  by  their  defeats  and  humiliations  in 
the  Crimean  war,  by  the  ingratitude  of  Austria,  and  still  more 


PANSLAVISM  .      55 

by  the  threats  of  Western  interference  in  favor  of  Poland  which 
became  loud  in  1863,  have  now,  almost  without  reserve,  espoused 
the  cause  of  Panslavism,  in  its  Czaric  form,  expecting  through 
it  to  revenge  past  insults,  to  extinguish  the  last  vestige  of  Polish 
nationality,  to  extend  the  limits  of  Kussia  to  the  Adriatic  and 
the  Bosphorus,  to  rule,  and  even  to  regenerate,  Europe.  A 
grand  Panslavic  gathering,  convoked  and  feted  last  year  at 
Moscow,  at  which  even  Palacky  and  Kieger,  formerly  leading 
liberal  members  of  the  Austrian  Parliament,  appeared  as  repre- 
sentatives of  Bohemia,  and  at  which  high  imperial  dignitaries 
spoke  in  the  name  of  Eussia,  has  made  it  manifest  to  the  world 
how  far  things  have  gone  on  both  sides.  The  absence  of  the 
Poles,  however  —  only  Ruthenians  representing,  or  rather  mis- 
representing, the  Polish  provinces  —  and  some  later  demon- 
strations of  even  Czechic  opposition,  like  the  recent  brilliant 
pamphlet  of  Trie,  have  made  it  equally  clear  that  the  Pan- 
slavo-Czaric  coalition  is  far  from  being  acquiesced  in  by  all 
concerned. 

But  so  much  is  certain,  Panslavism  has  long  ceased  to  be  a 
chimera.  It  has  become  a  live  idea,  agitating  eighty  millions 
of  people  —  we  exclude  the  Poles  —  and  perhaps  destined  soon 
to  shake  the  world  as  terribly  as  Islamism  did  in  the  seventh, 
and  again  in  the  fifteenth,  century.  Of  those  eighty  millions 
of  Slavi,  two-thirds,  united  under  the  sceptre  of  the  Czar  and 
the  emblem  of  the  Greek  cross,  backed  by  twenty  million  fellow- 
subjects  of  different  race  but  mostly  of  the  same  creed,  and  aided 
by  ten  million  Roumanian  and  Greek  co-religionists  in  Turkey 
and  Austria,  are  to  call  to  arms  —  if  not  to  regenerate  and  an- 
nex—  almost  all  the  rest  of  the  Slavi  (embracing  nearly  as 
many  Greeks  as  Catholics),  leading  them  to  a  deadly  strife 
against  Turks,  Hungarians,  Germans,  and  Poles.  This  strug- 
gle, if  successful,  whether  ultimately  resulting  in  the  regenera- 
tion and  independence  of  the  south-western  Slavi,  or,  which 
is  more  likely,  in  their  subjugation  by  Russia,  would  in  any 
case  bring  about  the  total  ruin  of  the  Moslems  in  Europe,  the 
fall  of  Hungarian  liberty  and  supremacy,  the  extinction  of  the 
Polish  nationality,  the  breaking  up  of  Austria,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  German  civilization  in  the  East;  it  would  replace  the 
crescent  by  the  Greek  cross  on  the  dome  of  St.  Sophia,  would 


56  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

convert  the  Euxine  into  a  Russian  lake,  and  make  the  Czar, 
whose  Cossacks  even  now  guard  the  banks  of  the  Amoor,  the 
Araxes,  the  Jaxartes,  and  the  Tornea,  the  most  powerful  ruler 
that  ever  wielded  a  sceptre. 

Victorious  Panslavism,  therefore,  means  not  only  death  to 
Turkey,  Hungary,  Poland,  and  Austria;  it  also  means  the 
domination  of  Russia  and  her  Church,  without  a  rival  able 
to  cope  with  them,  in  both  Asia  and  Europe ;  it  means  Russian 
sway  over  the  Aral  and  the  Caspian,  the  Euxine  and  the  Archi- 
pelago, the  Baltic  and  the  Adriatic ;  it  means  the  pressing  back 
of  the  eastern  boundaries  of  Germany  and  a  menace  to  her 
independence.  Hence  the  constant  dread  of  Turkey;  hence 
the  opposition  of  Austria  to  every  step  taken  by  Russia,  openly 
or  covertly,  in  the  direction  of  the  Danube ;  hence  the  alacrity 
of  the  Hungarians  and  Poles  to  meet  the  liberal,  and  this  time 
sincere,  advances  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg;  hence  the  jealous 
alarms  of  France  and  England,  and  their  readiness  to  stand  by 
Austria  and  Turkey;  hence  the  activity  of  the  Catholic  clergy 
in  opposing  and  baffling  the  intrigues  and  plots  of  Russian 
emissaries  in  Galicia,  Bulgaria,  and  Hungary;  hence  the  hesi- 
tation of  Prussia  —  though  she  might  at  first  gain  by  the  fall 
of  Austria  and  the  extinction  of  Poland  —  to  conclude  a  de- 
fensive and  offensive  alliance  with  her  powerful  eastern  neigh- 
bor, a  hesitation  which  may  also  keep  the  new  Prince  of  Rou- 
mania  —  a  Hohenzollern  prince  —  from  throwing  himself  into 
the  arms  of  the  Czar. 

Will  all  these  opposing  forces,  coupled  with  the  financial 
weakness  of  the  Russian  empire,  long  prevent  the  Czar  from 
crossing  the  Rubicon,  and  casting  the  die  of  war,  urged  on, 
as  he  is,  by  vistas  of  glory,  the  sting  of  opposition,  and  the 
fanaticism  of  his  people?  Will  those  opposing  forces  long  re- 
main in  harmony,  or  will  awakening  mutual  jealousies  paralyze 
their  action?  Will  an  accident  bring  about  the  long-delayed 
fatal  collision?  Into  which  of  the  scales  is  Prussia  likely 
to  throw  her  weight?  Into  which  is  victory  likely  to  thrqw 
hers  ?  All  these  and  many  similar  questions  involuntarily  pre- 
sent themselves,  but  it  is  beyond  our  powers,  as  it  is  beyond 
our  province,  to  answer  them. 


A   KEVIEW   OF   KENAN'S    "ST.   PAUL"       57 


KENAN'S  "ST.  PAUL" 

"  The  third  volume  of  M.  Kenan's  Histoire  des  Origines  du 
Christianisme  embraces  the  period  of  the  first  great  missions  to 
the  Gentiles,  of  which  St.  Paul  is  the  hero.  It  opens  with  the 
departure  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  from  Antioch  in  the  year  45, 
and  closes  with  the  arrival  of  the  apostle  as  captive  at  Rome,  in 
61.  This  period  of  sixteen  years  the  author  justly  considers 
the  historically  best  known  in  '  the  embryonic  age  of  Christian- 
ity.' Before  them  lie  the  shadowy  '  images  of  a  remote  para- 
dise, lost  in  a  haze  of  mystery,'  which  he  has  reproduced  in  the 
pages  of  the  *  Vie  de  Jesus  '  and  '  Les  Apotres  ' ;  after  them  fol- 
lows a  long  night  of  profound  darkness,  through  which  only 
'  the  bloody  shine  of  Nero's  savage  feasts,'  '  the  thunderbolt  of 
the  Apocalypse,'  and  the  torch  which  destroyed  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem,  dart  their  lurid  light.  These  few  visible  traits,  to- 
gether with  the  dimly  transparent  features  of  the  last  years  of 
the  apostles,  are  to  form  the  main  subjects  of  the  fourth  part 
of  the  '  Origines,'  which  the  author  hopes  to  complete  in  a  fifth 
volume,  closing  with  '  the  definitive  establishment  of  dogmatic 
orthodoxy.' 

As  a  work  of  literary  art  —  whether  we  consider  the  compo- 
sition of  the  whole,  the  elaboration  of  parts,  or  the  coloring  — 
'  St.  Paul '  could  but  with  difficulty  obtain  the  distinction  of 
surpassing  its  two  predecessors,  for  the  sole  reason  that,  as  works 
of  art,  these  could  hardly  be  surpassed;  and  yet  we  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  even  that  distinction  must  be  awarded  it. 
We  forbear,  however,  specifying  the  grounds  on  which  we  base 
our  judgment.  The  consummate  mastership  in  planning,  ar- 
ranging, and  delineating,  these  charms  of  diction,  can  be  felt, 
but  can  hardly  be  described,  except,  indeed,  by  expressing  the 
impression  they  produce  on  the  reader.  And  yet  it  is  chiefly  as 
a  product  of  historical  criticism  that  we  must  declare  the  '  St. 
Paul '  decidedly  superior  to  both  the  '  Jesus  '  and  the  '  Apotres.' 
And  here  we  can  specify  our  reasons.  First,  M.  Kenan  has, 
during  the  elaboration  of  these  volumes,  considerably  augmented 
the  vast  stock  of  knowledge  with  which  he  entered  upon  this 
field;  secondly,  he  has  in  the  same  proportion  chastened  his 


58  MICHAEL   HEILPRIX 

critical  fancy ;  thirdly,  lie  has  left  behind  him  that  part  of  his 
ground  in  which  the  adoring  believer  may  find  rich  materials 
for  the  adornment  of  his  temples,  and  the  iconoclastic  critic 
equally  abundant  fragments  to  exercise  his  irreverent  art  upon, 
but  which  offers  no  material  out  of  which  historical  monuments 

—  both  true  and  unhallowed  by  faith  —  could  be  shaped  by  a 
process,  however,  ingenious,  of  reconstructive  art. 

As  idyls  —  accompanied  by  erudite  notes  and  critical  intro- 
ductions, as  fanciful  pictures  of  a  '  pastorale  delicieuse  '  —  as 
M.  Renan  designates  the  life  of  the  earliest  followers  of  the 
Son  of  Man  —  the  '  Jesus  '  and  the  '  Apotres  '  are  really  charm- 
ing productions.  It  matters  nothing  that  the  idyl  sometimes 
almost  loses  its  character,  and  is,  almost  imperceptibly,  changed 
into  an  epic.  Idyllic  and  epic  elements  are  not  incompatible  in 
poetry;  the  picture  of  the  origins  of  an  Utopia  must  be  both 
epic  and  idyllic.  But  Utopias  are,  unfortunately,  only  cre- 
ations of  poets  or  visions  of  prophets.  The  Golden  Age,  the 
commonwealth  of  Plato,  the  '  last  days '  of  Isaiah  —  none  of 
these  belongs  to  the  domain  of  history.  And  no  *  grande  epopee  ' 
of  human  history,  from  Moses  to  Napoleon,  has  been  idyllic; 
least  of  all  the  French  Revolution,  with  which  M.  Renan  so 
much  likes  to  compare  the  revolution  he  depicts.  And  yet  it  is 
for  history  —  critical  history  —  that  he  endeavors  to  palm  upon 
us  those  delicious  pastorals.  As  history,  they  are  far  from  being 
delicious  —  if  in  fact  they  are  not  quite  the  contrary.  The  in- 
genious processes  by  which  our  author  transforms  rugged,  rude, 
and  ignorant  Galilee  —  the  Galilee  of  the  procurators,  the 
sicarii,  and  exorcists  —  into  an  earthly  paradise,  full  of  love 
and  joy  and  sunshine,  numberless  miracles  into  natural  facts, 
and  all  kinds  of  psychological  or  historical  incongruities  into 
apparently  logical  developments  —  those  processes  are  equalled 
in  uncriticalness  only  by  the  method  he  applies  in  examining 
ecclesiastico-traditional  testimony,  and  which  makes  him  so  often 
enter  as  historical  a  small  part  of  an  evidence  the  bulk  of  which 
he  rejects  as  forged,  falsified,  based  on  superstition,  or  alto- 
gether incredible.  M.  Renan,  without  any  qualification,  rejects 
as  incredible  everything  supernatural;  but  the  shadows  that 
accompany  the  delineations  of  supernatural  things  he  saves,  and 

—  quite   as   artfully   as   artistically  —  works   them  into   new 


A  REVIEW   OF  KENAN'S    "ST.    PAUL"       59 

images.  His  new  images  are  often  excellent  imitations  of  the 
sacred  ones  he  tears ;  but  while  orthodoxy  must  spurn  them  as 
devoid  of  all  sacred  substance,  mere  unimpassioned  criticism, 
too,  can  see  in  them  little  more  than  shadows.  The  age  of  Jesus 
is  a  fit  subject  for  the  pen  of  sceptical  historians;  his  life  can 
be  written  only  by  a  believer,  for  all  we  have  about  him  comes 
from  unconditional  believers. 

It  is  different  with  the  life  —  or,  rather,  the  career  —  of 
Paul.  The  main  and  most  historical  part  of  it  —  that  which 
has  exercised  so  vast  an  influence  upon  the  development  of 
Christendom  and  the  world  —  can  probably  well  be  traced. 
The  earlier  part  —  that  embracing  his  Jewish  life,  his  miracu- 
lous conversion  on  the  road  to  Damascus,  and  his  Christian 
activity  in  Syria  —  furnishes,  in  M.  Kenan's  elaboration,  some  of 
the  epic  tableaux  of  the  '  Apotres ' —  with  the  change,  of  course, 
of  the  grand  miracle  into  a  natural,  though  a  very  strange, 
occurrence.  The  mystery-covered  close  of  the  apostle's  career 
is  wisely  left  to  take  its  place  among  the  dim  appearances  of 
Christian  life  in  the  following  period.  The  volume  before  us 
sketches  after  tolerably  authentic  documents  —  M.  Kenan  re- 
jects only  the  Epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus  as  entirely  spurious 
—  the  period  of  Paul's  missionary  wanderings  through  Cyprus, 
Pamphylia,  Pisidia,  Lycaonia,  Cilicia,  Phrygia,  Mysia,  Thrace, 
Macedon,  Greece,  Ionia,  Lydia,  and  Syria  —  countries  through 
which,  with  few  exceptions,  the  biographer  expressly  followed 
the  footsteps  of  his  hero  before  writing  this  book;  the  period 
which  witnessed  the  foundation,  among  others,  of  the  primitive 
Christian  communities  of  Philippi  and  Thessalonica,  of  Athens 
and  Corinth,  of  Ephesus,  Colossse,  and  Laodicea  —  cities  to  the 
description  of  some  of  which  charming  pages  are  devoted ;  the 
period  which  gradually  developed  and  matured  that  anti-Mosaic 
and  anti-Judaic  form  of  Christianity,  of  which,  according  to 
M.  Kenan,  Paul,  and  not  Jesus,  was  the  father,  basing  it  on 
grace  and  justification  by  faith,  preaching  it  to  the  Gentiles, 
and  passionately  defending  it  against  the  authority  and  hostility 
of  the  original  apostles  —  the  strict  but  '  narrow-minded '  fol- 
lowers of  both  Jesus  and  Moses.  In  this  period  there  are  but 
few  miracles  to  be  rejected,  transformed,  or  ignored;  there  is 
no  divine  image  to  be  painted  over  into  that  of  an  angelic  man ; 


60  MICHAEL   HEILPRENT 

the  scene  is  no  Arcadian  Galilee ;  there  is  no  Mary  of  Magdala ; 
the  hero  is  a  very  unamiable  rabbi. 

The  reader  of  the  '  Apotres  '  will  remember  the  portrait  there 
given  of  the  short,  somewhat  crook-backed,  broad-shouldered, 
small-headed,  thick-bearded,  and  bald  Jew  of  Tarsus,  who,  as 
Saul,  gloated  over  the  agonies,  promoted  by  himself,  of  the  first 
Christian  martyrs,  but,  as  Paul,  was  destined  to  become  the  dis- 
seminator, the  great  light,  of  Christianity  —  the  teacher,  in  dis- 
tant ages,  of  Wyckliffe,  Huss,  Luther,  and  Calvin.  His  charac- 
ter, as  developed  chiefly  in  the  book  before  us,  is  far  from  being 
the  exact  counterpart  of  that  unattractive  exterior.  Paul  has 
changed  his  religion,  but  he  has  not  given  up  his  fanaticism. 
He  does  not  persecute,  for  the  powers  that  be  are  against  him ; 
but  he  is  passionate,  impetuous,  vehement,  rude,  and  not  inca- 
pable of  violence.  He  preaches  love  and  charity,  and  preaches 
them  in  words  that  alone  '  can  be  compared  to  the  discourses  of 
Jesus ' ;  but  he  seems  himself  to  be  inaccessible  to  all  tender 
emotions.  He  boasts,  and  justly  so,  of  grand  sacrifices  and  end- 
less sufferings  for  the  cause  to  which  he  has  devoted  his  life ;  but 
he  is  egotistic,  jealous,  obstinate,  contentious.  He  combats  the 
exclusiveness  of  Judaism,  but  without  giving  up  its  prejudices. 
He  believes  salvation  possible  only  under  his  own  formulas, 
inveighs  against  the  yoke  of  the  law,  and  yet  often  makes  con- 
cessions, breaks  his  own  rules,  and  compromises  with  supersti- 
tion and  untruth.  He  exorcises,  heals,  and  does  apparent  mir- 
acles. Nor  are  his  convictions  and  beliefs  such  as  could  appear 
particularly  attractive  under  the  pen  of  a  Renan.  His  theories 
of  sin,  indulgence,  faith,  justification,  grace,  and  redemption; 
his  ideas  of  marriage,  celibacy,  and  temptation;  his  belief  in 
miracles,  demons,  angels,  the  bodily  resurrection  of  Christ,  and 
the  approaching  end  of  the  world  —  all  these  are  little  to  the 
taste  of  unbelieving  philosophy,  and  M.  Renan  hides  neither  hia 
tastes  nor  his  philosophy. 

And  yet,  thanks  to  the  wonderful  skill  with  which  he  handles 
his  pen — as  if  it  were  a  magic  balancing  wand,  capable  of 
carrying  one  safely  over  the  double  abyss  of  decided  belief  and 
decided  unbelief  —  and  thanks,  also,  to  some  indisputably  grand 
mental  qualities  of  his  hero,  he  succeeds  in  representing  him  to 
his  readers  in  a  rather  brilliant  light.  He  almost  passionately 


A   REVIEW   OF   RENAN'S    "ST.    PAUL"       61 

sides  with  him  —  who  '  never  saw  Jesus,  nor  heard  his  word/ 
1  scarcely  knew  his  parables ' ;  who  preached  revelations  of  a 
Christ  who  '  was  his  own  phantom/  and  *  heard  himself  while 
believing  he  heard  Jesus '  —  in  his  great  contest  with  Peter, 
James,  and  other  true  Apostles,  the  pillars  of  the  Church  of 
Jerusalem.  He  even  goes  to  the  length  of  suspecting  the  bigotry 
of  that  Judaizing  circle  of  complicity  in  the  surrender  of  Paul 
to  the  Roman  authorities.  Altogether,  the  Apostles  of  Jerusa- 
lem cut  a  rather  pitiable  figure  in  the  new  volume  of  the  '  Ori- 
gines,'  and,  contrasted  with  them,  Paul  easily  appears  not  only 
the  liberator  of  Christianity,  but  its  very  genius. 

Looking  at  the  situation  from  M.  Renan's  critical  standpoint, 
we  must  say,  however,  that  he  does  the  Apostles  of  Jerusalem 
injustice,  and  unduly  extols  their  antagonist.  We  cannot  per- 
ceive what  should  have  induced  them,  who  lived  in  the  still  un- 
destroyed  state  of  Judea,  under  the  law,  which  was  both  reli- 
gious and  civil,  and  which  they  had  seen  Jesus  observe  to  his 
death  —  what  should  have  induced  them  to  desert  the  divine 
institutions  of  their  country  and  people,  that  had  been  binding 
from  times  immemorial,  for  the  sake  of  a  new-fangled  reform, 
the  fruits  of  which  the  world  could  not  enjoy,  as  it  was  inconti- 
nently to  come  to  a  terrific  end.  Nor  can  we  see  what  rational 
ground  might  have  led  Paul  to  use  much  violence  —  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  make  so  many  concessions  —  in  carrying  through 
that  reform,  while  fervently  admonishing  his  converts  to  live  a 
provisional  life,  without  attempting  any  change  of  condition  — 
be  it  even  through  marriage  —  for  the  time  was  short,  and  the 
world  as  it  was,  was  passing  away.  The  truth  is,  the  great  fault 
of  M.  Renan  in  judging  men  and  ideas  of  that  time  is  his  in- 
voluntary viewing  them  from  the  standpoint  of  a  philosophical 
observer  who  has  eighteen  centuries  of  Christianity  behind  him. 
Looking  upon  a  Christianized  world,  he  eulogizes  him  who  sacri- 
ficed everything  to  the  universalization  of  the  liberating  faith, 
and  casts  stones  at  those  who,  from  narrow-minded  piety,  laid 
obstacles  in  his  way  —  forgetting  that,  according  to  his  own 
statement,  the  number  of  all  the  Gentiles  converted  by  Paul 
probably  amounted  to  little  more  than  a  thousand,  and  that  these 
converts  mostly  belonged  to  the  lowest  and  most  powerless 
stratum  of  society.  And  there  is  nothing  in  M.  Renan's  narra- 


/ 

> 

/ 


62  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

tive  which  could  explain  how  —  without  prophetic  gifts,  in 
which  he  does  not  believe  —  either  '  the  twelve  *  or  the  great 
missionary  could  have  dreamed  of  what  the  philosopher  knows ; 
and  that,  too,  while  they  were  momentarily  waiting  for  the  end 
of  the  world. 

Want  of  space  prevents  us  from  calling  attention  to  the  num- 
berless beautiful  descriptions  and  generalizations  interwoven 
with  the  narrative,  as  well  as  from  exposing  the  glittering  shal- 
lowness  of  others.  M.  Kenan's  knowledge  is  more  extensive  and 
exact  than  profound.  He  draws  his  materials  from  stores  both 
vast  and  varied ;  but  certainly  he  is  not  always  conscientious  in 
selecting  and  sifting  them.  The  ease  with  which  he  creates 
almost  perfect  forms  induces  him  to  be  lavish  in  multiplying 
striking  traits.  He  likes  to  dwell  on  the  beautiful,  and  is  almost 
entirely  devoid  of  humor;  but  there  is  something  like  hidden 
irony  in  some  of  his  delineations  —  though  his  religious  scepti- 
cism is  most  remote  from  that  of  Voltaire  or  Gibbon.  We  might 
call  him  a  Rousseau  writing  sacred  history." 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco-German  war  of  1870-71 
Mr.  Heilprin's  contributions  to  the  Nation  assumed  an  even 
more  important  character.  He  wrote  many  of  the  leading 
articles  concerning  the  political  aspects  of  the  struggle,  and 
these  attracted  considerable  attention.  The  first  of  these,  re- 
printed herewith,  appeared,  in  a  German  translation,  in  the 
Berlin  Vossische  Zeitung: 


SOME  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR 

y  In  his  "  Idee  Napoleonienne,"  Louis  Napoleon  quotes  from 

his  favorite  history  of  the  First  Empire,  Bignon's,  the  follow- 
ing: "  One  day  people  will  ask,  Why  did  Napoleon,  in  the  last 
six  years  of  his  reign,  show  himself  so  pitiless  towards  Prussia  ? 
The  reason  is:  Prussia  was  the  power  that  harmed  him  most, 
for  she  compelled  him  to  fight  and  destroy  her,  while  his  de- 
sire was  to  extend,  to  strengthen,  and  to  aggrandize  her."  We 
do  not  know  whether  the  author  of  the  "  Idee  Napoleonienne," 
who  has  now  with  so  much  vehemence  drawn  the  sword  against 
Prussia  —  old,  infirm,  and  generally  passionless  as  he  is  —  has 


CAUSES    OF   THE    FRANCO-GEKMAN   WAR     63 

either  the  desire  or  the  ability  to  treat  her  pitilessly  and  to 
destroy  her ;  but  —  granting  Bignon's  view  to  be  correct  — 
we  cannot  fail  to  notice  the  analogy  between  the  Prussian  wars 
of  the  two  imperial  reigns  arising  from  the  fact  that  Napoleon 
III.,  too,  sees  himself  compelled  to  fight  Prussia  after  some 
endeavors  "  to  extend,  to  strengthen,  and  to  aggrandize  her." 

The  object  of  Napoleon  I.  in  giving  Hanover  to  Prussia,  after 
Austerlitz,  was,  as  Bignon  expresses  it,  "  to  ensure,  by  her  aid, 
the  immobility  of  Russia  and  Austria,  to  give  to  the  Conti- 
nental system  an  irresistible  development,  and  thus  to  force 
England  to  make  peace."  Besides,  Napoleon  received  some 
territorial  compensations  for  what  he  took  from  the  King  of 
England  and  gave  to  Prussia.  The  object  of  Napoleon  III: 
in  conspiring  with  Bismarck  for  the  aggrandizement  of  Prus- 
sia—  by  the  absorption,  among  other  territories,  of  the  same 
Hanover,  as  chiefly  required  for  her  consolidation  —  was 
to  bring  about  a  final  disruption  of  Germany,  which  would 
render  her  powerless  to  resist  the  natural  expansion  of  France 
—  as  the  French  call  Cisrhenan  conquests  —  whether  at  the 
expense  of  Belgium  or  of  Prussia  herself,  should  a  protracted 
war  have  crippled  her  resources  equally  with  those  of  Austria. 
And,  low  though  our  opinion  be  of  the  unselfishness  of  the  liv- 
ing Napoleon,  we  cannot  refrain  from  acknowledging  that  his 
intentions  concerning  Prussia  were  more  sincere  than  those  of 
the  great  conqueror.  For  the  latter  aimed  at  universal  empire 
over  Europe,  and  could  therefore  tolerate  no  respectable  power 
besides  his  own,  while  the  former  would  be  fully  satisfied  to  be 
acknowledged  mightiest  among  the  mighty. 

Prussia  compelled  Napoleon  I.  to  fight  her  by  refusing  to  be 
his  abject  slave.  She  has  compelled  Napoleon  III.  to  fight  her 
by  her  victory  at  Sadowa.  This  victory  by  its  suddenness  has 
frustrated  the  schemes  of  French  expansion,  and  made  Prussia 
almost  the  equal  of  France  in  power.  It  has  eclipsed  Sevastopol, 
Magenta,  and  Solferino  —  which  were  the  dearly  bought  com- 
pensations in  gloire  for  endless  sacrifices  of  liberte  —  and  partly 
effaced  even  the  remembrances  of  Jena  and  Wagram.  It  has 
aroused  the  vanity  of  the  French  to  a  degree  which  makes  them 
both  restless  and  restive.  The  trophies  of  Miltiades  will  not 
allow  Themistocles  to  sleep  j  from  the  day  of  Sadowa  France 


64  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

has  enjoyed  no  rest.  She  has  actually  begun  to  doubt  whether 
she  is  after  all  la  grande  nation.  A  great  revolution  and  great 
victories  long  ago  procured  her  that  glorious  title;  she  sees  it 
now  rapidly  becoming  vain-glorious  merely.  She  must  have 
new  victories  or  else  a  new  revolution.  Napoleon  has  not  been 
slow  in  comprehending  the  changed  situation,  the  changed  tem- 
per of  France.  And  where  revolution  or  war  is  the  alternative, 
he  cannot  hesitate  in  his  choice.  While  playing  or  struggling 
with  an  incipient  revolution,  he  has  prepared  for  war  —  and 
Europe  will  be  drenched  in  blood.  It  is  idle  to  speculate  how 
far,  in  throwing  down  the  gauntlet  to  the  rival  of  France,  he  is 
actuated  by  motives  of  personal  interest,  looking  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  dynasty,  and  how  far  by  feelings  inspired  by  the 
interests  of  the  nation  whose  ruler  he  is.  Whether  equally  im- 
perative or  not,  regard  for  the  safety  of  his  throne  and  regard 
for  "  the  honor  of  France  "  command  him  to  fight. 

Among  the  personal  considerations  looking  to  the  preservation 
/  of  both  throne  and  fame,  we  may  mention  the  advantage,  so 
obvious  under  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  Second  Empire, 
of  breaking  by  a  powerful  series  of  warlike  deeds  the  chain 
of  historical  remembrances  now  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  the 
French  people.  The  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  of  the  personal 
rule  of  Napoleon,  beginning  with  the  coup  d'etat  of  Dec.  2, 
1851,  form  a  connected  period  of  usurpation  and  hypocrisy, 
preceded  by  three  years  of  wire-pulling  and  presidential  be- 
trayal of  trust.  This  period  is  that  which  the  generation  that 
knew  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe  and  the  Eevolution  of  1848 
is  constantly  contemplating  and  meditating  about  as  the  worst 
part  of  their  country's  history  in  this  century;  as  a  long- 
stretched  inglorious  present  to  which  the  late  imperial  con- 
cessions, crowned  by  a  plebiscitum  of  a  strangely  dubious  char- 
acter, seem  to  form  a  continuation  rather  than  a  concluding  and 
reconciling  epilogue.  Nothing  would  be  more  apt  to  impress 
upon  the  recent  constitutional  change  in  France  the  character 
of  such  an  epilogue  than  the  suddenly  following  opening  of  a 
new  series  of  events,  sufficiently  dramatic  and  heroically  tragic 
to  strike  the  imagination  of  the  people  with  the  idea  of  entirely 
novel,  grand  performances,  with  the  impression  of  a  new  era 
opening  in  the  history  of  their  country.  Should  speedy  victory 


, 


/ 


/ 


CAUSES   OF   THE    FRANCO-GEBMAN   WAR,     65 

perch  upon  the  imperial  eagles,  the  new  era  would  be  hailed, 
as  such,  with  all  the  rapture  of  national  vanity ;  should  a  long 
war  with  varying  success  ensue,  the  multiplicity  and  intensity 
of  the  new  impressions  would  the  more  easily  cast  the  late  past 
into  comparative  oblivion.  In  either  case,  Napoleon  would 
appear  in  the  new  light  of  a  champion  of  France  in  a  grand 
contest  with  an  envied  rival. 

Nor  have  the  provocations  to  hostility,  on  the  part  of  Prussia, 
been  slight  in  the  eyes  of  Napoleon.  Not  only  has  she  dared  to 
conquer  beyond  all  measure  compatible  with  "  the  honor  of 
France  " ;  not  only  has  she  used  and  abused  her  victory  ex- 
clusively for  her  own  benefit  and  without  any  regard  to  the 
claims  and  remonstrances  of  the  monarch  who  at  first  aided  her 
by  his  council  and  connivance;  but  she  has  also  crossed  and 
baffled  some  of  his  most  favorite  schemes  in  an  almost  atrocious 
way.  It  was  he  who  proclaimed  himself  the  protector  and  re- 
generator of  the  decayed  Latin  race,  from  the  Pontus  to  the 
Pacific.  It  was  he  who  brought  about  the  union  of  Moldavia 
and  Wallachia  in  the  shape  of  an  all  but  independent  Eoumania. 
It  was  he  who  worked  with  Cavour  and  fought  with  Garibaldi 
for  the  freedom  of  Italy,  "  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic."  It 
was  he  who  encouraged  O'Donnell  to  revive  the  ancient  glory 
of  Spain  on  the  soil  of  the  Moors  and  to  restore  her  sway  in 
the  Antilles.  It  was  he  who  erected  and  defended,  as  a  shield 
of  the  Latin  race  against  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  imperial  throne 
of  Maximilian  in  Mexico.  Surely  it  was  a  great  dream,  this 
universal  Latin  protectorate  of  France.  And  how  has  it  van- 
ished ?  Excepting  Mexico,  where  it  ended  in  a  tragedy,  Prussia 
has  turned  it  into  a  mockery  everywhere.  She  has  placed  a 
prince  of  her  royal  house,  Charles  of  Hohenzollern,  on  the 
throne  of  Roumania.  She  has  conquered  —  at  Sadowa  —  the 
Italian  quadrilateral  of  fortresses,  which  her  arming  in  1859 
prevented  Napoleon  from  assaulting,  and  has  surrendered  it 
and  Venice  to  Italy  —  through  his  own  hands.  And  now  she 
has  arranged  to  set  another  Hohenzollern  prince  on  the  throne 
even  of  Spain.  Are  not  all  these  provocations,  put  together, 
too  destructive  of  the  prestige,  too  insulting  to  the  pride  of  a 
Napoleon  to  be  submitted  to  calmly,  to  be  borne  without  an 
attempt  at  revenge?  We  presume  they  have  weighed  heavily 


66  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

in  the  scales  in  which  the  Emperor  of  the  Erench  lately  weighed 
peace  and  war. 

The  article  which  follows  is  a  striking  presentation  of  a 
subject  of  permanent  interest.  Mr.  Heilprin  masses,  with  tell- 
ing effect,  the  lessons  of  history  and  geography  in  support  of 
his  thesis  that  mountains,  not  rivers,  form  natural  barriers 
between  countries. 


NATURAL  BOUNDARIES 

When  the  power  of  Napoleon  I.  was  rapidly  crumbling  away 
after  the  crushing  defeat  at  Leipzig,  the  allies,  halting  at 
Erankfort  before  entering  upon  the  last  campaign,  offered  him, 
for  peace,  the  undisturbed  possession  of  France,  with  her  limits 
extended  east  to  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  The  Erance  thus 
offered  him  would  have  been  almost  coextensive  with  ancient 
Gaul,  which  was  bounded  by  the  Rhine,  the  Alps,  and  the 
Pyrenees,  and  would  have  embraced,  besides  the  French  Em- 
pire as  it  now  is,  the  whole  of  Belgium,  portions  of  the  Nether- 
lands, Luxemburg,  and  Rhenish  Prussia,  Hesse,  and  Bavaria. 
Napoleon,  in  his  unreasonable  pride,  spurned  these  terms  of 
peace,  and  when,  a  few  months  later,  he  presented  them  as  his 
own  to  the  Peace  Conference  at  Chatillon,  they  were  rejected 
by  the  allies.  Napoleon  fell,  and  the  kingdom  of  the  Bourbons 
was  ultimately  reconstructed  as  it  had  been  before  the  wars 
of  the  Revolution.  But  since  that  time  France  has  not  ceased 
dreaming  and  talking  of  her  natural  boundaries  —  the  Pyrenees, 
the  Alps,  and  the  Rhine.  And  this  has  not  been  the  idle  dream 
and  idle  talk  of  popular  vanity  and  demagogism  merely ;  states- 
men, historians,  publicists,  and  poets  have  vied  with  each  other 
in  making  France  believe  that  she  had  a  natural  right  to  all 
the  lands  west  of  the  Rhine,  and  the  dire  consequence  of  that 
fondly  cherished  delusion  is  the  present  war. 

We  call  it  a  delusion,  for  the  Rhine  is  not  a  natural  boun- 
dary of  France  in  a  rational  sense  of  the  word.  Nor  are  rivers, 
in  general,  the  natural  boundaries  of  countries.  Rivers,  it  is 
true,  form  excellent  geographical  lines  of  demarcation  between 
provinces  or  other  divisions  of  one  and  the  same  empire,  king- 


NATURAL   BOUNDARIES  67 

dom,  or  confederation,  such  as  are  the  lines  of  the  Ohio  and  the 
Mississippi,  which  bound  some  of  our  non^original  States. 
But  they  are  no  more  real  lines  of  separation  than  are  the 
meridians  of  longitude  or  parallels  of  latitude  which  have  been 
selected  to  bound  other  States  of  our  Union.  For  rivers,  and 
especially  navigable  rivers,  far  from  being  separating  barriers, 
are  natural  channels  of  intercourse  and  intermingling,  of  coales- 
cence and  union,  the  world  over.  Comparative  geography, 
a  science  of  rather  recent  development,  has  fully  established 
this  axiom.  If  used  as  real  barriers,  as  the  Rhine  and  Danube 
were  by  the  Eomans  against  the  barbarians,  and  the  Ticino 
and  Po  by  the  Austrians  against  Italy,  they  form  unnatural 
barriers  —  that  is  to  say,  unnatural  boundaries  —  kept  up  and 
guarded  by  the  sword  of  the  conqueror,  occasionally  long  enough 
to  become,  or  at  least  to  appear,  natural.  Watersheds,  not  rivers, 
form  natural  boundaries.  Mountain  ranges  separate  nation- 
alities. The  same  nationality  almost  everywhere  flourishes  on 
both  banks  of  every  navigable  river.  Every  basin,  or  at  least 
every  section  of  a  basin,  has  its  character.  The  inhabitants  of 
the  slopes  that  hem  it  in  will  fuse  with  the  dwellers  in  the 
bottom.  People  living  on  the  opposite  slopes  of  a  mountain 
range  will  tend  in  opposite  directions. 

The  whole  of  history  and  geography,  studied  together,  proves 
it.  The  Nile  has  never  nourished  two  different  nationalities 
on  its  opposite  banks;  it  has  never  been  the  boundary  of  an 
empire.  Babylonia  flourished  on  both  sides  of  the  Euphrates; 
Assyria  on  both  sides  of  the  Tigris.  The  Hebrews  occupied 
both  banks  of  the  Jordan.  Neither  the  Oxus  nor  the  Jaxartes, 
neither  the  Indus  nor  the  Ganges,  neither  the  Yan-tse-kiang 
nor  the  Ho-ang-ho,  has  ever  formed  a  boundary  between  differ- 
ent nationalities,  or  separated  different  civilizations.  It  was 
not  the  river  Eurotas,  the  Alpheus,  the  Cephissus,  or  the  Peneus, 
but  mountain  ranges  like  the  Taygetus,  the  Pindus,  and  the 
(Eta,  that  formed,  by  bounding,  the  wonderful  system  of  Gre- 
cian autonomies.  The  various  sections  and  branches  of  the 
Apennines  mainly  separated  the  ancient  national  divisions  of 
Italy.  Rome  developed  its  power  on  both  banks  of  the  Tiber; 
the  Po,  in  forming  Cispadane  and  Transpadane  Gaul,  bounded 
provinces  but  separated  no  nationalities;  the  little  rivulet 


68  MICHAEL   HEILPRIET 

Rubicon  only  marked  the  end  of  a  frontier  line  formed  by  the 
Apennines,  just  as  the  little  Tweed  in  the  Middle  Ages  served 
to  complete  the  natural  boundary  line  of  the  Cheviot  range 
between  England  and  Scotland. 

Mountain  ranges,  not  rivers,  formed,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  grand  divisions  of  the  Iberian  Peninsula.  The  Ebro  flows 
not  on  the  confines  but  through  the  midlands  of  Aragon;  the 
Guadalquivir  does  not  bound  but  traverses  Andalusia;  Castil- 
ians  live  on  both  sides  of  the  upper  Douro  and  Tagus,  Portu- 
guese on  both  sides  of  the  lower.  The  countries  of  Eastern 
and  Central  Europe  show  striking  parallel  examples.  Russians 
inhabit  both  banks  of  the  Volga  and  the  Don,  Poles  both  banks 
of  the  Vistula;  Germans  both  banks  of  the  Oder,  the  Elbe, 
the  Weser,  and  the  Rhine.  The  Danube  flows  through  the  very 
centres  of  Wurtemberg,  Bavaria,  Austria,  and  Hungary.  The 
last-named  polyglot  country  owes  its  national  unity  mainly  to 
the  encircling  wall  of  the  Carpathians;  all  its  rivers  flow 
towards  or  through  its  central  bottom  lands,  and  thus  keep  up 
a  union  even  of  the  most  heterogeneous  elements.  Bohemia  is 
a  mountain  quadrilateral. 

The  mountain  and  river  systems  of  the  rest  of  Europe  con- 
firm the  rule,  with  hardly  a  single  exception.  Neither  do  those 
of  America  invalidate  it.  That  the  Father  of  Rivers  is  a  mighty 
bond  of  union  instead  of  a  barrier  of  separation,  is  acknowledged 
on  all  hands.  The  same  is  the  case  with  the  Missouri.  A 
glance  at  the  map  will  show  that  the  St.  Lawrence  is  only  a 
figurative  boundary  line  between  the  United  States  and  the 
British  Provinces,  and  that  it  flows  through  the  latter.  The 
Rio  Grande  is  a  frontier  line  dictated  by  recent  conquest,  and 
Indian  tribes  continue  to  roam  on  both  its  banks.  Rivers 
selected  as  State  lines  are  too  feeble  even  as  barriers  between 
communities.  The  lower  western  bank  of  the  Hudson  is  lined 
with  suburbs  of  New  York  City.  Camden  is  a  suburb  of  Phila- 
delphia; Covington,  of  Cincinnati.  In  South  America,  the 
Amazon  and  the  Orinoco  offer  parallel  instances  to  the  Missis- 
sippi and  the  St.  Lawrence.  Some  branches  of  the  La  Plata 
alone  can  be  said  to  form  exceptions,  but  recent  events  indicate 
that  even  these  are  not  to  last. 

To  return  to  the  natural  boundary  between  France  and  Ger- 


NATURAL   BOUNDARIES  69 

many.  It  is  clear  that  the  Rhine  is  far  from  forming  it,  either 
geographically  or  historically.  The  natural  geographical  boun- 
dary line,  irrespective  of  the  now  existing  nationalities  is  the 
watershed  between  the  Meuse  and  the  Aisne  and  Marne,  and 
its  easterly  continuation  between  the  head-waters  of  the  Saone 
and  Doubs,  on  one  side,  and  those  of  the  Moselle  and  111,  on  the 
other.  All  of  France  that  lies  east  and  north-east  of  this 
watershed  —  the  main  parts  of  Lorraine  and  the  whole  of 
Alsace  —  belongs  to  the  water  system  of  the  Rhine,  a  river 
both  banks  of  which,  from  its  source  to  its  mouth,  are  inhabited 
exclusively  by  Teutonic  people  —  Swiss,  Germans  proper,  and 
Dutch.  Historically,  the  lands  watered  by  those  western  afflu- 
ents of  the  Rhine  formed,  after  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  rule 
in  Gaul,  parts  of  the  FrankisK  realm  of  Clovis,  and  subse- 
quently of  its  eastern  and  purely  German  division,  Austrasia, 
while  the  valleys  of  the  Seine  and  of  its  numerous  affluents 
formed  the  much  more  Gallic  western  division,  Neustria.  The 
Carlo vingian  Empire  embraced  both  divisions,  but  after  its  final 
disruption  during  the  period  of  partitions  inaugurated  by  the 
Treaty  of  Verdun,  Austrasia  was  merged  in  Germany,  while 
out  of  Neustria  gradually  grew  up  the  modern  Kingdom  of 
France.  And  both  Alsace  and  Lorraine  —  the  latter  in  its 
main  parts  —  continued  to  belong  to  Germany  down  to  the  time 
when  French  centralization,  developed  by  Louis  XI.  and  per- 
fected by  Richelieu,  proved  itself  decidedly  superior  to  the  more 
and  more  loosening  machinery  of  the  Empire  —  the  final  an- 
nexation of  the  two  provinces  to  France  taking  place  under  Louis 
XIV.  and  Louis  XV.  respectively.  The  inner  territories  of 
Lorraine  have  since  become  almost  entirely  Gallicized;  Alsace 
is  French  in  sentiment,  though  not  in  language,  and  the  section 
of  the  Rhine  which  bounds  it  on  the  east  has  assumed  the 
semblance  of  a  natural  boundary,  but  the  semblance  only.  The 
possession  of  the  western  bank  of  this  river  section  has  stimu- 
lated the  desire  of  making  the  Rhine  the  eastern  boundary  of 
France.  The  constant  threatening  to  achieve  this  conquest 
as  an  act  based  on  a  natural  postulate  has  awakened,  even  in 
the  more  moderate  portions  of  the  German  people,  the  thought 
of  re-establishing,  on  an  opportune  occasion,  the  natural  boun- 
daries between  Germany  and  France  as  they  were  before  the 


70  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Peace  of  Westphalia.  It  is  beyond  the  sphere  of  this  article 
to  discuss  the  questions  whether  the  present  is  the  opportune 
moment  to  do  it,  and  whether  it  would  at  any  time  be  just  or 
expedient  to  do  it  against  the  will  of  the  populations  concerned. 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  editorials  on  the 
war  was  the  following : 

WILL  "  THE  MIEACLE  OF  1792  "  REPEAT  ITSELF  ? 

In  the  summer  of  1792,  France  was  partly  invaded  and  partly 
threatened  by  armies  of  an  extensive  coalition.  Prussia  and 
Austria  were  marching  against  her;  the  Empire  and  the  King 
of  Sardinia  were  ready  to  join  them ;  Spain,  Rome,  and  Xaples 
were  expected  to  follow  suit;  Russia  promised  aid  to  the  in- 
vaders; the  English  Parliament  rang  with  thundering  appeals 
against  the  invaded.  In  one  word,  the  whole  of  Europe  seemed 
to  enter  upon  a  crusade  against  an  isolated  state,  and  that  a  state 
convulsed  and  shaken  to  its  very  foundations  by  an  unparalleled 
revolution,  a  state  whose  ruler  was  a  captive  in  his  own  blood- 
deluged  capital,  whose  army  was  demoralized  and  half-dis- 
banded, and  whose  legislature  was  dictated  to  by  frenzied  mobs. 
Revolutionary  Erance  seemed  to  be  lost,  her  leaders  doomed  to 
terrible  vengeance.  But  revolutionary  Erance,  instead  of  sink- 
ing upon  her  knees  before  Europe  in  arms,  only  redoubled  the 
inner  fury  which  seemed  to  consume  her,  and  by  dint  of  that 
fury  drove  the  foe  beyond  the  frontier,  and  carried  war,  con- 
vulsion, and  freedom  into  the  lands  of  the  invaders.  The  world 
was  astounded  by  this  extraordinary  phenomenon,  and  even  pos- 
terity calls  it  still  "  the  miracle  of  1792."  And  at  the  time  of 
our  writing,  seeing  France  again  invaded,  convulsed,  and  men- 
aced in  her  integrity  and  with  but  slight  chances  of  an  ordinary 
escape  from  the  terrible  consequences  of  folly  and  disaster,  the 
observer,  led  by  a  more  or  less  sympathetic  curiosity,  anxiously 
asks  himself  and  history,  Is  there  much  probability  of  the  miracle 
of  1792  repeating  itself?  Can  France,  the  ensnared  giant, 
once  more  arise  like  a  Samson,  and  by  one  grand  exertion  shake 
off  the  foes  ?  The  answer  of  history,  if  studied  with  candor  in 
connection  with  the  present,  is  —  we  must  state  it  —  sadly  dis- 
couraging to  the  friend  of  France,  and  that  on  various  grounds. 


THE    "MIKACLE    OF    1792"  71 

First,  the  invasion  of  1792,  compared  with  the  one  which  last 
month  laid  low  the  armies  of  Napoleon  III.,  was  far  from  being 
in  any  degree  powerful,  in  spite  of  the  vast  dimensions  it  ap- 
parently assumed.  The  armies  sent  against  France  were  neither 
numerous  nor  brought  up  in  the  school  of  victory;  their  move- 
ments were  slow  and  vacillating ;  their  commanders  pedantic  or 
imbecile  followers  of  an  old  traditional  strategy,  which  became 
entirely  worthless  when  the  genius  of  revolution  created  its  own 
in  the  French  camps ;  the  monarchies  which  sent  them  were  as 
hostile  to  each  other  as  they  were  to  the  common  enemy.  The 
stupid  intermeddling  of  the  French  refugees,  who  were  so  in- 
fluential in  bringing  about  the  coalition,  the  intrigues  of  the 
wretched  statesmen  —  Thugut,  Haugwitz,  Lucchesini,  and 
others  —  who  at  that  time  managed  affairs  at  the  courts  of 
Vienna  and  Berlin,  the  secret  plottings  of  the  allies  against  each 
other,  and  the  rivalries  of  the  respective  commanders,  made  all 
harmonious  action  by  the  Prussian  and  Austrian  armies  im- 
possible. The  mere  resistance  of  Kellerman  to  the  cannonade 
at  Valmy  sufficed  to  cause  the  retreat  of  the  Prussians  under  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick;  and  Dumouriez's  indecisive  fight  at  Je- 
mappes,  to  throw  the  Austrians,  under  Clairfait,  upon  the  de- 
fensive. The  first  —  endangered  minor  members  of  the  Empire 
—  the  clerical  electors  of  Mentz  and  Treves,  and  the  Palatine  — 
afraid  of  their  own  plundered  and  outraged  subjects  no  less  than 
of  the  French  republicans,  abandoned  their  territories  without 
daring  to  strike  a  blow.  The  troops  of  the  Sardinian  despot  were 
driven  from  Savoy  by  his  own  revolted  subjects.  Spain  en- 
gaged in  the  war  only  when  victory  had  declared  in  favor  of  the 
Republic,  and  then  under  the  auspices  of  Godoy,  a  queen's  fa- 
vorite, of  whom  it  was  believed  —  Lord  Holland  relates  it  — 
that,  as  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  he  did  not  know  the  differ- 
ence between  Russia  and  Prussia.  Rome  and  Naples  hesitated, 
as  became  their  impotence,  and,  when  Spain  was  beaten,  wisely 
preferred  to  do  nothing.  Catharine  was  too  much  engaged  in 
fighting  and  dismembering  Poland  to  keep  her  promise  on  West- 
ern battle-fields ;  and  England,  when  she  resolved  on  war,  could 
do  little  more  than  waste  her  treasures  on  worthless  allies,  who 
finally  betrayed  and  deserted  each  other.  And  is  it  necessary,  in 
order  to  show  the  vast  difference  between  the  invasion  of  1792 


I 

72  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

and  that  of  1870,  to  draw  parallels  between  that  tool  of  char- 
latans and  mistresses,  Frederic  William  II.,  and  William  I.; 
between  the  Prince  of  Coburg  and  Moltke ;  between  Lucchesini 
and  Bismarck ;  or  between  Valmy  and  Jemappes  and  Gravelotte 
and  Sedan? 

And  then,  in  fighting  the  ill-commanded,  scattered,  and  dis- 
united forces  of  the  then  degenerate,  womanish,  and  generally 
priest-ridden  courts  of  Vienna,  Berlin,  Turin,  and  Madrid,  rev- 
olutionary France  drew  her  courage,  inspiration,  and  boldness 
not  only  from  her  first,  almost  unexpected  military  successes, 
but  from  deeper  and  mightier  sources.  These  were  —  the  neces- 
sity of  conquering  or  perishing,  of  destroying  or  being  destroyed ; 
the  fanaticism  of  new  ideas,  more  powerful  than  any  that  had 
ever  agitated  Europe,  ideas  which  acted  with  the  magic  of  a 
world-regenerating  revelation;  the  intoxication  with  which  the 
recent  victories,  in  the  name  of  equality  and  fraternity,  over 
caste,  the  throne,  and  the  altar  had  filled  the  masses  of  the  self- 
disfranchised  people ;  the  concentrated  power  of  volcanic  forces 
which  an  all-crushing  terrorism  knew  how  to  elicit  from  the 
scattered  members  of  a  nation  suddenly  aroused  to  terrible  self- 
consciousness  ;  and,  finally,  the  certainty  of  meeting  with  allies 
burning  with  equal  passions  wherever  a  breach  could  be  made 
in  the  ramparts  of  effete  tyranny.  At  the  moment  when  Ferdi- 
nand of  Brunswick  began  his  retreat,  retiring  like  a  lamb  after 
having  roared  like  a  lion,  the  Convention  met,  and  decreed  a 
new  era  for  France  and  the  world.  France  believed  in  it,  and 
her  hosts  carried  their  faith  triumphantly  far  beyond  her  bor- 
ders, as  the  followers  of  Islam  had  carried  theirs  from  Mecca 
to  the  Pyrenees. 

Now,  all  these  sources  of  inspiration  and  success  are  wanting 
to  the  menaced  France  of  to-day.  She  has  not  only  to  fight  well- 
organized  and  well-led  armies,  flushed  with  patriotic  enthusi- 
asm and  the  pride  of  wonted  victory ;  she  has  not  only  met  with 
crushing  and  humbling  reverses  at  the  very  opening  of  the  con- 
test ;  but,  what  is  worse,  she  is  devoid  of  even  a  spark  of  that 
fanaticism  which  saved  her  in  1792,  and  made  Paris  a  world- 
shaking  volcano  in  the  following  years.  She  entered  the  lists 
with  a  bad  conscience,  and  debauched  and  enervated  by  twenty 
years  of  the  most  degrading  of  tyrannies,  and  that  a  tyranny 


THE    "MIKACLE    OF   1792"  73 

based  on  mere  materialism,  and  accepted  from  political  apathy 
and  cynical  unbelief  in  ideas ;  and  she  has  now,  in  this  supreme 
crisis,  no  other  moral  resource  to  fall  back  upon  but  ordinary 
patriotism,  a  sentiment  capable  of  great  sacrifices,  but  not  of 
miracles.  The  grand  ideas  which  by  turns  inspired  or  agitated 
France  after  1789  have  all  sadly  spent  their  force.  The  repub- 
lic, instead  of  founding  fraternity  and  freedom,  led,  in  the  first 
instance,  through  the  massacres  of  Paris,  the  noyades  of  Nantes, 
the  mitraillades  of  Lyons,  and  the  like,  to  the  18th  Brumaire; 
in  the  second,  through  the  10th  of  December,  1848,  and  the  2d 
of  December,  1851,  to  the  ignominious  self-abdication  of  the 
sovereign  people  in  1852.  Bonapartism  —  that  is,  "  la  Gloire  " 
—  ended,  in  the  first  instance,  after  the  sacrifice  by  France  of 
millions  of  her  sons  to  that  idol,  with  the  surrender  of  Paris 
and  the  captivity  at  St.  Helena;  and,  in  the  second,  with  the 
more  humiliating  surrender  at  Sedan  and  the  farcical  captivity 
at  Wilhelmshohe.  Revived  Bourbon  legitimism  killed  itself,  in 
July,  1830,  by  its  own  stupidity.  Orleanism,  which  replaced 
it,  showed  its  inherent  want  of  vitality  by  being  swept  away 
by  a  slight  revolutionary  blast,  in  February,  1848.  Socialism 
made  itself  hateful  by  leading  to  the  carnage  of  June,  1848,  in 
which  it  was  stifled ;  and  universal  suffrage  lost  all  its  sanctity 
by  sanctioning  every  act  and  demand  of  triumphant  usurpation. 
And,  to  make  the  case  worse,  while  France  is  without  faith  and 
without  enthusiasm,  the  enthusiasm  of  her  foes,  the  Germans, 
and  their  proud  belief  in  their  own  intellectual  and  military 
superiority,  have  risen  to  a  pitch  never  before  reached,  and  are 
productive  of  astounding  displays  of  energy. 

At  the  moment,  too,  when  France  has  to  make  her  supreme 
effort,  her  organism,  as  of  late  constituted,  finds  itself  almost 
fatally  deranged,  not  to  say  destroyed.  Paris,  which  has  become 
both  her  head  and  heart,  is,  so  to  say,  severed  from  the  trunk 
of  the  country,  and  its  other  disjointed  members,  from  which 
the  effort  is  expected,  are  left  palpitating,  but  without  sufficient 
life  of  their  own.  This  condition  is  owing  to  the  stupendous 
centralization  which  the  Eevolution  created,  the  First  Empire 
developed,  and  all  subsequent  reigns  strengthened,  and  which, 
radically  transforming  the  organism  of  the  nation,  has  finally 
almost  entirely  drained  the  provinces  of  brains,  impulse,  and 


74  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

self-directing  power.  All  authority  —  military,  judicial,  or  ad- 
ministrative—  all  political  or  intellectual  leadership  —  all 
higher  talent,  in  whatever  branch  of  mental  activity  —  has  been 
turned  into  that  one  grand  reservoir,  Paris.  All  French  men 
of  eminence  in  the  ruling  spheres  of  national  life  are  Parisians 
by  education  or  in  consequence  of  their  public  career.  The 
country  is  accustomed  to  receive  from  that  all-directing  centre 
its  administration,  its  guidance,  its  convictions,  its  intelligence, 
its  impulses,  its  very  life-blood.  All  this,  again,  was  vastly  dif- 
ferent at  the  time  when  revolutionary  France  was  invaded  and 
menaced.  There  was  life,  independent  vitality,  and  animation 
in  all  her  limbs,  and  the  common  focus,  Paris,  served  to  unite 
and  regulate  the  national  forces  without  anywhere  exhausting 
them.  Nay,  Paris  at  that  time  received  its  inspiration,  its 
greatest  intelligence,  its  violent  impulses,  in  main  part,  from 
the  country,  which  teemed  with  talent  and  passion.  The  first 
armed  resistance  to  the  absolutism  of  Louis  XVI.  came  from 
Dauphine  and  Bretagne.  Provence  sent  to  Paris  the  most 
powerful  orator  of  the  time,  Mirabeau,  and  the  almost  equally 
eloquent  Girondists,  '  Isnard  and  Barbaroux.  Vergniaud, 
Guadet,  and  Gensonne,  the  foremost  leaders  of  the  Girondist 
party,  came  from  the  department  from  which  it  derived  its 
name ;  their  able  and  noble-hearted  associate,  Lanjuinais,  from 
Rennes;  Buzot,  from  Evreux;  Petion,  from  Chartres;  Ro- 
land, from  Lyons.  Bretons  formed  the  club  out  of  which  that 
of  the  Jacobins  was  developed,  and  the  most  terrible  of  terror- 
ists, Barere,  Merlin  de  Thionville,  Billaud-Varennes,  Fabre 
d'Eglantine,  and  Robespierre  himself,  with  his  two  nearest  asso- 
ciates, St.  Just  and  Couthon,  were  provincials,  as  were  also  the 
most  conspicuous  clerical  revolutionists  —  men  widely  different 
in  character  —  the  Abbe  Gregoire,  Bishop  Talleyrand,  and  the 
capuchin  Chabot.  Mme.  Roland  and  Charlotte  Corday  came 
from  the  provinces,  and  so  also  "  the  organizer  of  victory,"  Car- 
not,  and  its  great  promoter,  the  Marseillaise.  For  such  abilities 
and  passions  it  is  vain  to  look  to  the  country  districts  of  the 
France  of  to-day,  while  Paris  is  isolated,  paralyzed,  and  per- 
haps on  the  eve  of  a  surrender.  Patriotic  endurance,  blunders 
on  the  part  of  Prussia,  and  the  intervention  of  disease  or  of 
foreign  powers,  may  still  restore  France  in  her  integrity;  but 


AETICLES    ON   MILITAKY   AFFAIRS  75 

salvation  through  a  repetition  of  "  the  miracle  of  1792  "  seems 
to  us  as  little  possible  as  salvation  through  the  appearance  of 
another  Joan  d'Arc. 


ARTICLES  ON  MILITARY  AFFAIRS 

In  addition  to  his  leading  articles  during  the  war  and  many 
book  reviews,  Mr.  Heilprin  contributed  to  the  Nation  every 
week  editorial  notes  which,  closely  following  the  military  move- 
ments of  the  great  armies,  formed  unquestionably  the  most  ac- 
curate comment  on  them  which  appeared  in  any  American 
paper.  His  extraordinary  geographical  knowledge  and  a  predi- 
lection for  strategic  studies  previously  acquired  stamped  these 
contributions  as  altogether  unique,  and  they  were  widely 
noticed.  I  remember  that  a  prominent  West  Point  official,  who 
himself  during  that  time  contributed  a  series  of  valuable  "  Notes 
on  the  War  "  to  the  Nation,  over  the  signature  of  "  D.  H.  M.," 
while  in  the  office  of  that  journal  one  day,  asked  Mr.  Garrison 
who  the  strategist  was  that  wrote  those  remarkable  military 
comments  on  the  progress  of  hostilities.  Mr.  Garrison  pointed 
to  Mr.  Heilprin,  who  stood  next  to  him,  and  introduced  the  two 
writers  to  each  other.  I  quote  at  random  a  few  of  these  edi- 
torial notes,  from  the  issue  of  September  22,  1870 : 

"  The  war  is  vigorously  carried  on  by  the  Prussians,  but 
merely  by  marches,  investments,  and  sieges ;  for  no  battles  take 
place,  the  French  forces  in  the  field,  wherever  and  whatever  they 
may  be,  being  still  paralyzed  by  the  stunning  effects  of  the  dis- 
asters which  terminated  the  Empire.  No  Army  of  the  Loire, 
no  Army  of  Lyons,  has  as  yet  made  its  appearance  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Prussian  camps.  No  flying  detachments,  no 
partisan  bodies,  have  anywhere  attempted  to  pierce  the  enemy's 
extended  lines  of  communication,  or  even  to  harass  his  flanks. 
Even  the  isolated  German  army  corps  which  carries  on  the  siege 
of  Strasbourg  is  left  entirely  unmolested  by  any  attempt  at  a 
rescue  or  a  diversion,  which  the  gallant  defenders  of  that  for- 
tress would  so  well  deserve;  and  the  most  important  cities  of 
the  Upper  Ehine,  Colmar,  Mulhouse,  and  Belfort,  have  been 
abandoned  without  a  blow  to  an  insignificant  force  of  Baden 


76  MICHAEL   HEILPKItf 

troops.  Thus  almost  the  whole  of  Alsace  is  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  Germans.  Of  the  towns  mentioned,  Belfort  is  the  most 
strategically  important,  forming,  as  it  does,  a  kind  of  gate  to  the 
province,  from  the  side  of  Besangon  and  Vesoul.  The  reports 
about  Schletstadt  are  conflicting. 


The  siege  of  Strasbourg  seems  to  be  pushed  forward  with 
the  utmost  vigor,  which  renders  its  obstinate  defence  the  more 
worthy  of  praise.  Metz,  too,  withstands  with  gallant  firmness, 
though  the  hostile  circle  around  it  is  tightening  from  day  to 
day,  and  gradual  exhaustion  within  must  be  getting  no  less 
alarming.  Sickness  thins  the  ranks  of  both  besieged  and  be- 
siegers. The  Prussian  grip  appears  to  be  the  strongest  on  the 
south-west  and  south,  on  both  sides  of  the  Moselle,  from  Grave- 
lotte,  by  Ars,  to  Courcelles ;  which  is  quite  natural,  as  a  break- 
ing through  of  French  forces  on  the  north  could  only  lead  to 
their  surrender  on  this  side  or  the  other  of  the  Belgian  fron- 
tier, while  an  escape  south,  were  it  possible,  might  prove  both 
ultimately  successful  and  destructive  to  the  Prussian  position 
between  Toul  and  Strasbourg.  "No  attempt  of  this  kind,  how- 
ever, has  been  made  by  Bazaine  since  his  repulse  at  the  close  of 
last  month,  and  the  reported  escape  of  Canrobert,  with  six  thou- 
sand men,  marching  straight  on  Paris,  was  but  a  foolish  piece 
of  fiction.  A  small  balloon  with  soldiers'  letters  from  Metz  is 
announced  in  Paris  to  have  been  caught  near  Neufchatel  (sic, 
probably  for  Neuf chateau,  in  the  Department  of  Vosges),  con- 
veying among  encouraging  expressions  the  surest  evidence  of  the 
complete  investment  of  that  fortress.  The  Prussians  are  also 
making  great  efforts  to  reduce  Toul,  in  spite  of  which  this  little 
stronghold  continues  its  brave  resistance.  Its  example  is  imi- 
tated by  Soissons,  which  the  Prussians  seem  to  have  completely 
invested.  Against  Verdun  no  new  attempt  has  been  made. 
Were  there  any  active  French  forces  left  in  the  field,  the  position 
of  the  invading  armies  would  be  greatly  endangered  by  the  garri- 
sons in  their  flank  and  rear. 


But  the  only  considerable  force  of  combatants  besides  Ba- 
zaine's,  in  Metz,  which  is  still  to  be  encountered  in  the  northern 


ARTICLES   ON   MILITARY   AFFAIRS          77 

half  of  France  —  the  southern  is  now  a  kind  of  terra  incognita, 
much  fabled  about  —  is  now  enclosed  within  the  fortifications 
of  the  capital,  and  almost  entirely  surrounded  by  the  main  forces 
of  the  invasion ;  for  the  Associated  Press  telegram  from  Paris, 
of  the  16th,  according  to  which  '  all  the  regular  troops,  as  well 
as  the  Francs-Tireurs,  have  left '  the  city,  to  fight  in  the  field, 
seems  as  little  deserving  of  credit  as  the  statements  accompany- 
ing it  —  that  '  all  non-combatants  '  have  been  ordered  to  leave ; 
that '  the  forests  around  the  city  have  been  entirely  consumed ' ; 
that  a  number  of  vagrants,  lately  expelled,  '  endeavored  forcibly 
to  re-enter  Paris,  but  were  driven  away  by  the  troops  ' ;  and  that 
Trochu  received  '  the  advance-guard  of  a  corps  of  10,000  Ameri- 
can volunteers.'  And  the  coil  of  the  Prussian  armies  which  is 
to  encircle  those  fortifications  —  of  course,  not  without  consider- 
able gaps,  which  might  prove  fatal  to  the  enterprise  were  Tro- 
chu's  troops  of  the  right  mettle  —  and  to  menace  their  weak 
sides,  is  hourly  drawing  closer  and  closer.  Fighting  —  on  a 
small  scale,  it  is  true  —  is  already  going  on  in  the  very  suburbs 
of  the  city,  to  which  nearly  all  approaches  by  rail  have  been  cut 
by  the  enemy,  the  bridges  around  being  blown  up  by  the  French 
themselves.  Cannonading  and  skirmishing  have  taken  place 
around  Villeneuve,  Ablon,  Athis-Mons,  and  Juvisy,  on  both  sides 
of  the  Seine,  the  Prussians  evidently  endeavoring  to  occupy  the 
hills  south  of  Paris,  on  which  batteries  can  be  planted  against 
the  forts  of  Bicetre,  Ivry,  and  Charenton.  They  have  also  ap- 
peared in  force  at  Creteil,  near  the  Marne,  about  three  miles 
to  the  south-east  from  the  last-named  fort,  while  the  fort  of  Vin- 
cennes,  to  the  north-east  of  Charenton,  is  reported  blown  up  as 
untenable.  The  gap  thus  created  between  the  forts  on  the  south- 
east and  the  forts  on  the  east  —  Rosny,  Romainville,  and  Noisy 
— Trochu  seems  to  intend  to  defend  by  the  strongest  portion  of 
his  army,  while  other  portions  will  have  to  be  detached  to  the 
opposite  side,  where  the  fortifications  between  Forts  Issy  and 
Mt.  Valerien  have,  from  the  beginning,  been  defective.  Nor 
can  the  woods  of  Clamart  and  Meudon,  adjoining  Forts  Issy  and 
Vanves,  which  heavy  rains  prevented  from  being  burned,  defi- 
nitively be  abandoned,  for  they  would  offer  a  shelter  to  the 
enemy,  whose  advance-guard  has  already  appeared  in  that  vicin- 
ity, as  well  as  at  Versailles  and  various  adjoining  places.  The 


78  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

northern  line  of  fortifications  is  regarded  as  the  safest.  Trochu, 
in  public,  speaks  with  confidence  of  his  ability  to  hold  Paris,  and 
his  hands  are  strengthened  by  the  orderly,  tranquil  behavior  of 
the  inhabitants,  though  there  are  indications  of  a  Eed  Republi- 
can undercurrent  of  sentiment,  which  threatens  fatal  conse- 
quences. Red  Republicanism  is  said  to  be  rampant  at  Lyons 
in  defiance  of  the  new  Government." 

I  can  only  allude  to  other  weighty  political  articles  written  by 
Mr.  Heilprin  during  that  time,  such  as  those  on  "How  the 
Great  Change  Affects  the  Nations,"  "  Alsace  and  Lorraine," 
"  Trochu  on  the  French  Army,"  "  The  New  German  Empire," 
and  "  Dynastic  Fusion  in  France."  Among  his  notable  book  re- 
views were  those  of  Washburn's  "  Paraguay,"  Laveleye's  "  Prus- 
sia and  Austria,"  and  Patterson's  "  Magyars." 


Ill 

THE  HISTOKICAL  POETRY  OF  THE  ANCIENT 
HEBREWS 

Eor  a  number  of  years  following  the  war  Mr.  Heilprin  found 
little  time  for  contributions  to  the  Nation.  He  was  engaged  in 
his  arduous  labor  of  revising  Appleton's  Cyclopaedia,  and  after 
the  completion  of  that  task  he  at  last  found  it  possible  to  carry 
out  a  plan  that  had  long  occupied  his  thought.  The  Historical 
Poetry  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews,  embodying  his  life-long  studies 
in  Biblical  literature,  was  the  fruit  of  the  comparative  leisure  of 
the  next  years.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  speak  at  length  of  a 
work  which  has  made  a  name  for  itself,  but  it  will  not  be  inap- 
propriate to  reprint  from  the  columns  of  the  Nation  the  two 
critical  notices,  from  a  competent  hand,  of  Mr.  Heilprin's 
volumes.  They  appeared  in  the  issues  of  July  24,  1879,  and 
July  22,  1880. 

HEILPRIN'S  HEBREW  POETRY 


Those  who  are  best  able  to  judge  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  scholar- 
ship and  general  force  of  mind  will  not  go  far  in  these  pages 
without  being  convinced  that  he  is  completely  at  home  in  this 
department  of  research.  Everywhere  there  is  unmistakable 
evidence  that  he  is  speaking  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  knowl- 
edge. His  name  has  not,  we  believe,  appeared  upon  the  title- 
page  of  any  book  before,  though  he  has  already  reached  "  the 
arm-chair  period  of  life."  So  much  the  better;  we  have  here 
the  ripe  result  of  a  whole  lifetime's  careful  and  enthusiastic 
study  and  investigation.  But  Mr.  Heilprin  has  long  been 
known  among  our  metropolitan  scholars  as  one  of  the  most 
learned  of  their  company;  a  man  whose  encyclopaedic  knowl- 
edge, especially  in  the  field  of  history,  has  amply  provided  him 
with  that  historical  sense  without  which  studies  like  the  present 
are  apt  to  be  almost  entirely  vain. 


80  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

Any  one  at  all  well  informed  in  Biblical  studies  is  not  de- 
ceived as  to  the  tendency  of  modern  Jewish  scholarship,  but  to 
many  others  it  will  be  a  surprise  to  find  a  "  Hebrew  of  the  He- 
brews "  maintaining  the  most  radical  convictions  concerning 
the  Old  Testament  writings.  They  have  probably  imagined 
that  such  convictions  were  the  special  property  of  Protestant 
Christians  or  ex-Christians.  But  no, 

"  The  current  sweeps  the  Old  World, 
The  current  sweeps  the  New." 

Be  it  a  good  or  evil  sign,  modern  Judaism,  equally  with  mod- 
ern Christianity,  is  affected  by  the  scientific  tendency,  and  ap- 
plies the  scientific  method  to  the  Old  Testament  writings  with 
equal  if  not  greater  boldness.  Mr.  Heilprin  has  the  advantage, 
which  many  scholars  have  not,  of  being  equally  at  home  in 
Jewish  and  in  Christian  studies  of  the  Old  Testament  litera- 
ture. He  is  entirely  catholic.  The  Jewish  critics,  Graetz  and 
Zunz,  are  no  more  authoritative  with  him  than  the  Protestant 
Christians  Oort  and  Kuenen.  In  Protestant  circles  the  latter 
are  commonly  esteemed,  so  far  as  known,  as  our  least  conserva- 
tive critics;  but  they  are  somewhat  more  conservative  than  the 
former.  Judaism  has  never  had  the  same  logical  necessity  for 
an  infallible  scripture  with  Christian  Protestantism,  and  so  it 
has  been  easier  for  Jewish  scholars  to  apply  a  scientific  method 
to  their  sacred  books. 

It  has  been  lately  urged  against  certain  attempts  to  subject 
the  Bible  to  a  scientific  method  of  investigation,  that  without 
an  exact  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  tongue  no  one  is  competent 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  these  things.  An  exact  knowledge  of 
Hebrew  has  been  proclaimed  to  be  an  effectual  antidote  to  the 
Dutch  schcol  of  critics,  albeit  the  members  of  that  school  are 
perhaps  quite  as  well  up  in  their  Hebrew  as  their  conservative 
critics.  But  in  Mr.  Heilprin  we  have  a  scholar  whose  study  of 
Hebrew  began  in  his  infancy  and  has  continued  ever  since; 
who  has  the  Hebrew  Bible  at  his  finger  ends ;  who  nevertheless 
has  not  been  preserved  in  this  way  from  conclusions  very  much 
at  variance  with  the  popular  conception  of  the  Old  Testament 
writings.  In  one  other  particular,  too,  Mr.  Heilprin's  book  is 
exceedingly  instructive.  The  notion  has  somehow  got  abroad 


HISTOEICAL  POETKY  OF  ANCIENT  HEBREWS    81 

that  the  scientific  study  of  the  Bible  is  inconsistent  with  the 
most  tender  reverence  for  its  contents  or  with  their  persistent 
fascination.  But  the  reverence  of  Mr.  Heilprin  for  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  criticism  could  hardly  be  surpassed,  and  that  it 
has  not  lost  its  power  to  interest  and  charm,  his  book  itself  is 
ample  evidence,  which  will  be  reinforced  by  the  experience  of 
every  intelligent  reader  of  its  too  brief  contents. 

The  present  volume  is  only  the  first  of  a  series  which  must 
inevitably  contain  two  or  three  more  to  bring  it  to  a  natural 
completion.  The  poetry  of  the  prophets,  as  yet  untouched,  is 
almost  exclusively  historical,  and,  treated  with  as  much  ampli- 
tude as  the  fragments  to  which  the  present  volume  is  devoted, 
will  demand  no  inconsiderable  amount  of  space.  Mr.  Heilprin 
plunges  immediately  into  his  subject  without  any  preface  or 
introduction,  and  leaves  the  reader  to  discover  his  method  from 
his  book.  The  first  section  is,  therefore,  somewhat  misleading. 
It  treats  of  the  address  of  Lamech  to  his  two  wives,  Adah  and 
Zillah.  The  passage  containing  this  address  being  the  first 
poetical  passage  in  the  Bible,  the  reader  is  led  to  expect  that  the 
poetical  passages  are  to  be  taken  up  in  the  order  of  their  occur- 
rence. But  Mr.  Heilprin's  method  proves  to  be  quite  different. 
He  takes  the  accepted  order  of  Hebrew  history  and  brings  to  its 
illustration  the  poetical  passages  that  are  concerned  with  it 
wherever  they  occur.  Thus  it  happens  that  his  second  section 
deals  with  Psalm  cv. :  "  It  is,  if  not  surprising,  worthy  of  no- 
tice," Mr.  Heilprin  remarks,  "  that  not  a  single  piece  of  Hebrew 
poetry  has  been  preserved  in  the  Scriptures  of  which  the  sub- 
ject is  either  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  or  Joseph,  all  of  whom  are 
heroes  of  extensive  prose  narratives,  and  all  of  whom  were  re- 
vered by  the  Hebrews  as  national  patriarchs."  The  author  of 
Psalm  cv.,  however,  does  late  and  scanty  justice  to  these  heroes 
by  introducing  them  into  a  poetical  summary  of  the  history  of 
Israel  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  those  subsequent  to  the 
captivity  in  Babylon.  This  summary  includes  the  two  follow- 
ing psalms.  The  three,  argues  Mr.  Heilprin,  belong  to  the 
same  period.  Mr.  Heilprin's  translation  of  the  first  is  full  of 
force  and  beauty,  and  is  a  new  evidence  for  the  necessity  of  a 
revised  translation  of  the  Bible,  if  we  really  care  to  know  the 
thoughts  expressed  in  the  original.  It  has  been  acutely  argued 


82  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

that  the  religion  of  modern  Protestantism  has  been  founded 
upon  the  King  James  translation,  not  on  the  original,  and  that 
to  change  the  translation  is  to  change  the  religion  of  the  English- 
Protestant  world.  It  may  be  so,  but  the  argument  comes  with 
an  ill  grace  from  those  who  accept  the  original  Hebrew  as 
peculiarly  the  word  of  God. 

By  way  of  introduction  to  the  so-called  "  Blessing  of  Jacob," 
Mr.  Heilprin  discusses  at  some  length  the  patriarchal  legends, 
quoting  with  undisguised  approval  the  monograph  of  A.  Bern- 
stein, the  central  idea  of  which  is  that  there  were  originally 
three  centres  of  patriarchal  legend,  and  that  the  ultimate  shape 
which  the  different  legends  assumed  resulted  from  the  clumsy 
harmonizing  of  much  that  was  antagonistic  and  incongruous. 
The  different  centres  corresponded  to  the  tribes  Judah,  Simeon, 
and  Ephraim,  and  were  deeply  colored  by  their  rivalries  and 
hostilities.  We  cannot  follow  out  this  scheme  into  its  details, 
but  many  of  them  are  exceedingly  interesting.  Abraham  was 
the  favorite  patriarch  of  Judah,  Isaac  of  Simeon,  and  Jacob 
of  Ephraim.  The  story  of  Judah  and  Tamar,  according  to 
Bernstein,  was  originally  a  lampoon  on  David  and  his  house. 
The  marriage  of  Judah  with  a  Canaanitess  corresponds  to 
David's  with  the  Hittitess,  Uriah's  wife.  There  are  other  points 
of  correspondence.  David's  line  is  made  to  originate  in  the  dis- 
graceful connection  of  Judah  with  Tamar.  But  such  was  the 
naivete  of  the  harmonists  that  this  lampoon  was  ultimately  in- 
cluded in  the  Davidic  legend  as  if  it  were  the  simple  truth, 

"  The  Blessing  of  Jacob,"  to  which  we  are  introduced  by  this 
discussion,  is  regarded  by  Mr.  Heilprin,  who  in  this  instance 
also  has  the  acute  criticism  of  Bernstein  to  support  him,  as  an 
Ephraimic  retrospect  of  a  time  subsequent  to  the  disruption  of 
the  kingdom.  To  this  disruption  is  referred  the  famous  text, 
"  Until  Shiloh  come,"  commonly  spoken  of  as  a  Messianic 
prophecy.  Mr.  Heilprin  translates  "  Until  he  [Judah,  the 
tribe]  come  to  Shiloh  and  there  is  a  gathering  of  tribes  around 
him."  This,  of  course,  makes  it  a  prophecy  post  eventum. 

Mr.  Heilprin's  translation  of  Miriam's  Red  Sea  song  is  full 
of  spirit.  He  is  disposed  to  consider  it  of  later  origin  than  the 
corresponding  narrative,  finding  allusions  in  it  to  the  temple. 
But  some  of  its  verses  have  "  the  ring  of  great  antiquity."  The 


HISTOEICAL  POETEY  OF  ANCIENT  HEBREWS    83 

story  of  Balak  and  Balaam  given  in  the  Book  of  Numbers  has 
long  been  one  of  the  most  fascinating  for  the  critics,  conserva- 
tive and  radical  alike.  It  is  as  fascinating  for  Mr.  Heilprin  as 
for  any  of  his  predecessors.  The  episode  of  the  ass  and  the 
angel  he  considers  an  interpolation  of  a  later  writer.  The  Ba- 
laam of  this  story  is  a  noble  figure ;  but  the  Hebrews  had  an- 
other Balaam  in  their  legends  who  was  very  different  —  a  vul- 
gar soothsayer.  Which  of  these  legends  is  the  older  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  determine.  The  latter  has  the  advantage  of  being  em- 
bedded in  a  dry  historical  narrative.  Mr.  Heilprin  apparently 
sympathizes  with  the  almost  startling  suggestion  of  Seinecke 
that  the  Macedonian  power  was  already  in  the  ascendant  when 
the  concluding  lines  of  this  superb  fragment  of  Scripture  were 
composed. 

"  The  Blessing  of  Moses  "  (Deut.  xxxiii.)  is  carefully  com- 
pared with  "  The  Blessing  of  Jacob."  It  breathes  a  much  more 
amicable  and  gentle  spirit,  and  belongs  to  a  later  period,  when 
the  animosities  of  Judah  and  Israel  were  somewhat  softened. 
The  omission  of  Simeon  from  this  blessing  is  a  notable  fact, 
on  which  the  commentators  have  spent,  not  to  say  wasted,  an 
immense  amount  of  ingenuity.  Mr.  Heilprin,  following 
Graetz,  who  in  his  turn  follows  the  Talmudist  Rabbi  Eliezer, 
argues  that  we  should  read,  "  Hear,  O  Jehovah,  Simeon's  voice," 
and  not  "  Judah's,"  and  gives  plausible  reasons  for  such  a 
change. 

"  The  Song  of  Deborah,"  Kuenen's  readers  will  remember,  is 
regarded  by  him  as  a  document  more  nearly  contemporary  with 
the  event  recorded  than  almost  any  other  in  the  early  Hebrew 
history.  But  Mr.  Heilprin,  while  admiring  this  splendid  frag- 
ment as  heartily  as  possible,  is  inclined  to  assign  it  to  a  much 
later  period  than  that  of  the  Judges,  and  to  be  exceedingly 
doubtful  of  its  historic  value.  He  discovers  Aramaisms  in  it 
which  point  to  the  Babylonian  period  of  Hebrew  literature. 
Instead  of  a  spontaneous  outburst,  we  have  here  a  finished  work 
of  art.  The  victory  of  Thothmes  III.  on  the  battle-field  of 
Megiddo  is  perhaps  the  most  considerable  element  of  fact  in 
this  fascinating  mixture  of  Israelitish  and  Egyptian  war 
reminiscences. 

In  treating  the  legend  of  Samson  Mr.  Heilprin  does  not 


84  MICHAEL   HEILPRIST 

depart  widely  from  the  interpretations  of  Goldziher  and  Oort 
and  Steinthal,  all  of  whom,  with  many  others,  regard  the  story 
as  a  solar  myth,  and  Samson  as  a  sort  of  Hebrew  Hercules. 
Whether  there  was,  as  Oort  supposes,  some  Danite  hero  of  her- 
culean strength  and  prowess  who  furnished  a  point  of  attach- 
ment for  the  solar  myth,  is  not  easily  determined.  There  can 
be  little  doubt,  however,  without  going  the  length  of  Goldziher, 
that  personal  and  solar  myths  had  strong  attractions  for  each 
other;  that  the  attributes  of  solar  heroes  were  often  borrowed 
from  the  fame  of  actual  persons  of  great  popular  renown,  and 
that  the  converse  of  this  process  was  equally  natural. 

David's  lament  for  Jonathan  opens  up  to  Mr.  Heilprin  the 
whole  question  of  David's  character,  and  his  relation  to  the  ex- 
tensive literature  in  the  Old  Testament  which  has  always  been 
associated  with  his  name.  The  conclusions  at  which  he  arrives 
are  decidedly  adverse  to  David's  literary  claims.  Of  the  sev- 
enty-three psalms  ascribed  to  David  in  the  Old  Testament  Ewald 
admitted  the  genuineness  of  fifteen  only.  Professor  Robertson 
Smith,  in  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  contends  for  the  un- 
doubted genuineness  of  two.  Mr.  Heilprin  prefers  to  either  of 
these  judgments  that  of  Kuenen  and  Oort,  to  the  effect  that  no- 
where in  the  Psalms  have  we  the  workmanship  of  David,  and 
that  the  lament  for  Jonathan  must  go  the  way  of  all  the  rest 
that  is  ascribed  to  him.  The  grounds  on  which  he  bases  this 
conclusion  will  not  of  course  be  generally  satisfactory,  but  they 
are  not  trivial  and  deserve  careful  consideration. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  volume  will  meet  with  such  a 
reception  as  will  encourage  Mr.  Heilprin  to  publish  the  comple- 
mentary volumes  at  an  early  day.  When  the  whole  is  com- 
pleted there  should  be  an  index,  the  lack  of  which  in  the  pres- 
ent volume  is  a  matter  of  regret,  especially  as  there  is  not  even 
a  table  of  contents. 


II 

The  general  characteristics  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  second  volume 
of  translations  and  critical  notices  of  Old  Testament  poetry  are 
the  same  as  those  of  his  first  volume,  which  appeared  about  a 
year  ago,  and  which  was  noticed  by  us  at  the  time  of  its  ap- 


HISTORICAL  POETEY  OF  ANCIENT  HEBREWS    85 

pearance  with  considerable  fulness.  The  favorable  opinion 
which  we  then  expressed  of  the  merits  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  work 
has  since  been  supported  by  the  opinion  of  many  competent 
critics.  Especially  noteworthy  is  the  welcome  accorded  to  the 
book  by  Dr.  Abram  Kuenen,  the  acknowledged  head  of  the 
Dutch  school  of  Biblical  criticism,  whose  "  Religion  of  Israel " 
and  "  Prophets  and  Prophecy  in  Israel "  are  the  most  important 
Biblical  studies  that  have  appeared  since  Strauss's  "  Leben 
Jesu,"  and  the  most  worthy  of  that  so  lightly-used  designation, 
"  epoch-making  books."  Mr.  Heilprin's  desire  to  advance  cer- 
tain critical  ideas  rather  than  his  own  reputation  for  novelty  or 
originality,  led  him  in  his  former  volume  to  fall  back  in  many  in- 
stances on  the  expressions  of  other  scholars  even  when  his  own 
enquiries  had  anticipated  their  results ;  and  this  modesty  on  his 
part  argued  to  some  of  his  more  careless  readers  that  his  book 
was  largely  a  compilation  of  the  results  of  other  critics.  The 
more  careful  could  not  have  been  so  mistaken.  At  every  turn 
there  was  for  such  the  evidence  of  a  mind  as  easily  at  home 
in  Old  Testament  studies,  their  broader  aspects  and  their  nicest 
verbal  intricacies,  as  any  of  the  most  famous  critics  of  our 
time.  Dr.  Kuenen  has  amply  recognized  this  fact  in  his  review 
of  Mr.  Heilprin's  first  volume.  Mr.  Heilprin  is,  in  fact,  so 
little  servile,  so  freely  speculative,  so  daringly  original,  that  not 
the  least  of  his  merits  is  his  ability  to  refrain  from  the  sug- 
gestion of  theories  which  have  not  yet  arrived  at  definite  scien- 
tific confirmation.  In  the  second  volume  we  have  the  same 
unconventional  treatment  of  the  general  subject  as  in  the  first, 
the  same  willingness  to  subject  the  most  cherished  theories  to 
the  tests  of  scientific  study,  and,  consequently,  the  same  wide 
departure  from  those  opinions  of  the  Old  Testament  literature 
which  are  commonly  held  among  us.  Even  the  translations 
sound  the  knell  of  many  a  fond  illusion,  resolving  words  that 
have  long  been  used  as  theological  weapons  into  the  nothingness 
of  total  misinterpretation ;  and  this,  too,  without  the  appearance 
anywhere  of  any  dogmatic  impulse  whatsoever.  Intent  only 
on  a  correct  translation  of  the  ancient  Hebrew,  Mr.  Heilprin 
never  shows  the  least  desire  to  rob  a  theologian  of  some  cherished 
text 

The  translations  in  this  volume  engross  much  more  space  and 


86  MICHAEL   HEILPKItf 

deal  with  texts  of  much  greater  interest  than  in  the  former. 
The  gain  in  intelligibility  over  our  common  version  is  no  greater 
than  the  well-instructed  would  anticipate,  but  to  the  unin- 
structed  it  must  seem  immense,  and  we  can  imagine  the  mingled 
feelings  of  distress  and  pleasure  with  which  the  average  Bible- 
reader  would  find  the  cabalistic  phrases  which  he  has  read  so 
often  without  attaching  to  them  any  definite  meaning  suddenly 
becoming  apprehensible  to  his  understanding.  But  with  all  this 
there  is  not  much  if  any  loss  of  poetic  charm.  This  is  the  more 
remarkable  to  an  English  reader,  because  Mr.  Heilprin  was 
not  to  the  manner  born  of  our  common  version,  and  apparently 
he  has  made  no  attempt,  as  many  of  our  translators  very  properly 
do,  to  conform  to  this  as  nearly  as  possible.  His  success  is 
simply  that  of  a  man  who  has  a  nice  feeling  for  words,  who 
likes  them  homely  and  strong,  and  knows  that  only  such  are  a 
fit  vehicle  for  the  transmission  of  the  ideas  and  sentiments  of 
ancient  Hebrew  poetry. 

The  present  volume  begins  with  David,  and,  like  the  former, 
follows  the  chronological  order  of  events  and  not  that  of  the 
literary  matter.  Having  shown  already  how  little  reason  there 
is  to  suspect  David  of  literary  authorship,  it  is  now  shown  that 
he  is  only  incidentally  the  subject  of  his  nation's  poetry.  The 
most  considerable  mention  of  him  is  in  Psalms  Ixxxix.  and 
cxxxii.,  and  here  it  is  the  late  echo  of  popular  traditions  already 
formed,  and  is  entirely  at  variance  with  the  comparatively  trust- 
worthy accounts  of  the  historic  books.  Solomon,  who  figures 
so  magnificently  in  the  prose  histories,  "  besides  figuring  as  an 
author  in  spurious  superscriptions,"  is  not  honored  by  either 
prophet  or  psalmist  with  so  much  as  the  briefest  mention.  To 
the  "  Song  of  Songs  "  Mr.  Heilprin  accords  no  historical  relation 
to  Solomon,  either  subjective  or  objective;  hence  it  does  not 
here  fall  within  the  scope  of  his  criticism.  Yet  in  one  of  his 
longer  notes  he  is  led  to  declare  with  emphasis  in  favor  of  the 
theory,  defended  by  Graetz,  which  considers  the  "  Song "  a 
product  of  the  age  of  the  Ptolemies. 

The  twenty-third  section  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  studies  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  in  his  series,  and  reveals  as  well  as  any 
the  acuteness  of  his  critical  perceptions.  It  deals  with  the 
successors  of  Zimri,  Omri,  and  Ahab,  the  objects  of  the  prophet 


HISTOKICAL  POETKY  OF  ANCIENT  HEBREWS    87 

Micah's  severest  animadversion  in  the  book  of  prophecy 
ascribed  to  him.  In  the  Book  of  Kings  elaborate  mention  is 
made  of  Ahab;  and  a  prophet  Micaiah,  the  son  of  Imlah, 
figures  conspicuously.  The  narrative  has  many  points  of  con- 
tact with  the  prophecies  of  Micah  of  Moresheth.  These  are 
variously  explained.  Mr.  Heilprin,  accepting  as  the  most 
plausible  hypothesis  that  Micah  introduced  into  his  book  frag- 
ments of  the  older  prophet,  applying  them  to  the  events  of  his 
own  time,  rescues  a  number  of  passages  which  he  conceives  to 
be  of  the  more  ancient  date,  and  assigns  to  them  a  definite 
historical  importance.  Hardly  less  interesting  here  than  the 
critical  result  is  the  side-light  which  it  throws  upon  the  literary 
methods  of  the  prophetic  period.  Evidently  the  right  of  prop- 
erty in  ideas  was  then  but  little  understood,  and  there  were  no 
conceptions  corresponding  to  the  words  plagiarism  and  forgery. 

The  next  following  section  introduces  us  to  the  famous  Moa- 
bite  stone  discovered  at  Diban  in  1868.  Mr.  Heilprin  gives  a 
translation  of  so  much  of  the  decipherment  as  the  ablest  ex- 
pounders—  Schlottmann,  Noldeke,  Kaempf,  and  M.  A.  Levy 
—  are  fully  agreed  upon,  following  it  with  an  account  from 
Kings  of  the  subsequent  course  of  events.  The  poetic  frag- 
ment corresponding  to  this  is  found  in  Isaiah  xv.  and  xvi.,  which 
have  been  fully  established  to  be  not  Isaiah's,  abounding  as 
they  do  in  peculiar  and  archaic  forms  of  expression.  Nothing 
else  in  the  Old  Testament,  says  Knobel,  can  be  the  production 
of  the  same  author. 

The  next  five  sections  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  book,  from  the 
twenty-fifth  to  the  thirtieth,  deal  exclusively  with  the  prophecies 
of  Amos  of  Tekoa,  who,  about  800  B.  c.,  came  from  Judah  to 
preach  righteousness  in  Israel. 

"We  can  almost  image  to  ourselves,"  he  says,  "the  plain,  poor 
man  from  Tekoa  —  for  he  was  one  of  the  shepherds  of  that  little 
town  who  tended  their  flocks  on  the  borders  of  the  wilderness  of 
Judah  —  standing  before  a  concourse  of  people  at  the  public  place  of 
Beth-El  or  Samaria,  reading  from  a  scroll  brought  with  him  the  last 
of  a  string  of  direful  prophetic  utterances,  and  suddenly  breaking 
off  at  the  fresh  remembrance  of  shocking  experiences,  and  wildly 
pouring  forth  against  his  hearers  accusations,  reproaches,  and  im- 
precations. It  was  heartless  oppression  of  the  poor  by  the  rich  and 


88  MICHAEL 

the  guardians  of  justice,  and  shameless  licentiousness  fed  by  extor- 
tion, which  wrung  from  him  this  outburst  of  wrath." 

The  translation  which  is  thus  introduced  is  full  of  energy. 
The  translator  has  put  his  heart  into  it  as  well  as  his  head, 
and  the  sentences  clash  and  ring  in  primitive  Oriental  fashion. 
Following  up  this  translation  with  others  bearing  on  the  his- 
torical events  of  Amos's  time,  he  comes  in  the  twenty-seventh 
section  to  the  passage  on  Assyria,  the  nation  in  which  Amos 
saw  the  future  chastiser  of  Israel.  The  black  obelisk  inscrip- 
tion discovered  by  Layard  at  Kimrud  is  parallel  with  Amos 
to  some  extent,  and  so,  too,  is  the  monolith  inscription  found 
at  Kurkh,  and  Shalmaneser's  "bull  inscription";  or,  rather, 
these  various  inscriptions  indicate  the  state  of  things  which  was 
imminent  in  the  time  of  Amos,  and  which  he  might  well  an- 
ticipate with  terror.  The  last  three  chapters  of  Amos  have  a 
visionary  character  which  distinguishes  them  sharply  from  the 
chapters  that  precede  them.  These  chapters  Mr.  Heilprin  as- 
signs to  a  period  some  years  later  than  the  preceding.  The 
concluding  verses  of  Amos,  which  are  of  a  much  more  optimistic 
and  consolatory  character  than  the  body  of  the  work,  bear  a 
strong  resemblance  to  the  concluding  passages  of  Joel  and 
Zephaniah.  They  were  probably  added,  Mr.  Heilprin  thinks, 
by  some  one  of  the  redactors  of  the  minor  prophets  in  order  to 
wind  up  the  book  with  predictions  of  lasting  prosperity  and 
peace. 

A  chapter  on  the  general  characteristics  of  Amos  and  of  the 
prophetic  office  is  appended  to  the  translations  and  criticisms 
of  the  prophet's  book.  It  is  introduced  by  an  exposition  of  the 
passage  in  1  Kings  xii.  32-xiii.  6,  in  which  the  actual  Amos 
is  made  over  into  a  mythical  person  as  different  from  him  as  the 
prophets  of  the  historical  books  generally  are  different  from  the 
prophets  whose  writings  have  been  preserved  for  our  instruction. 
In  the  histories,  miracle-working  and  miraculously  precise  reve- 
lations of  the  future  form  the  staple  of  the  narrative.  In  the 
writings  of  the  prophets,  the  conspicuous  thing  is  moral  ex- 
hortation, based  upon  the  natural  relationships  of  cause  and 
effect.  To  some  it  will  no  doubt  appear  that  the  prophets  of 
the  histories  are  much  more  exalted  personages  than  those  of  the 


HISTOKICAL  POETRY  OF  ANCIENT  HEBREWS    89 

canonical  prophetic  books.  To  Mr.  Heilprin  it  does  not  so 
appear.  What  impresses  him  in  Amos  and  the  rest  of  his  great 
company  is  a  certain  moral  grandeur.  This  he  fully  recognizes 
and  to  this  he  pays  due  reverence,  and  the  concluding  passages 
of  his  treatment  of  Amos  rise  with  his  honest  enthusiasm  to  a 
height  of  eloquent  expression  which,  if  not  anticipated  in  a  dis- 
cussion naturally  somewhat  dry  and  bare,  is  none  the  less  wel- 
come, certain  as  we  are  of  its  unqualified  sincerity. 

The  thirtieth  and  concluding  section  of  the  present  volume 
deals  exclusively  with  the  book  of  the  prophet  Hosea.  An  in- 
teresting problem  meets  us  at  the  very  threshold  of  this  book 
in  the  astonishing  parabolic  utterances  with  which  it  begins. 
That  these  utterances  are  parabolic  has  strangely  enough  been 
doubted  by  a  critic  so  reasonable  in  his  conclusions  generally  as 
Dean  Stanley.  To  suppose  them  narrations  of  literal  fact  is 
to  credit  Hosea  with  carrying  symbolic  action  to  a  disgusting 
extent.  The  conclusion  of  Mr.  Heilprin,  who  is  by  no  means 
solitary  here,  that  these  utterances  are  purely  parabolical,  is 
a  conclusion  as  much  more  pleasing  as  it  is  more  rational  than 
the  other.  The  differences  between  Amos  and  Hosea  are  clearly 
indicated.  In  the  latter  with  an  equal  earnestness  there  is  an 
added  strain  of  tenderness.  The  translations  from  Hosea  are 
copious;  the  critical  remarks  are  few  and  still  sufficient.  The 
translations  are  very  spirited,  and  make  many  dark  sayings  of 
our  common  version  clear  as  day.  Some  fifty  pages  of  critical 
and  explanatory  notes  at  the  end  of  the  book  appeal  to  those 
who  are  versed  in  the  niceties  of  scholarship  rather  than  to 
the  general  reader,  but  they  will  be  appreciated  by  those  for 
whom  they  are  intended.  We  are  obliged  to  lament,  as  in  the 
former  volume,  the  absence  of  any  index  or  table  of  contents, 
an  absence  the  more  noticeable  as  in  other  particulars  the  book- 
maker has  seconded  the  author  in  the  most  creditable  and  even 
luxurious  manner.  The  concluding  volume  will,  no  doubt,  re- 
pair this  deficiency. 

Mr.  Heilprin's  Historical  Poetry  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  learned,  both  here  and  abroad.  Professor  Kuenen,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  work  in  the  Leyden  Theologisch  Tijdschrift,  hailed 
the  author  as  an  intellectual  kinsman  ("  In  Michael  Heilprin 


90  MICHAEL   HEILPRIST 

mogen  wij  en  geesvterwant  begroeten  ") ;  among  other  Euro- 
pean authorities  who  reviewed  the  volumes  in  detail  and  ap- 
preciatively were  Professor  W.  Baudissin  (Leipzig  TUeologische 
Literaturzeitung)  and  Dr.  E.  Nestle  (Leipzig  Literarisches 
Centralblatt  fur  Deutschland'). 


IV 
AN   ESSAY   ON   FOREIGN   NAMES 

As  a  direct  result  of  his  editorial  revision  of  the  American 
Cyclopaedia,  Mr.  Heilprin  published  in  the  Nation,  October  18 
and  25  and  November  1,  1877,  three  articles  on  the  translitera- 
tion of  foreign  names,  a  subject  of  considerable  interest  to  Eng- 
lish writers  dealing  with  foreign  countries.  The  value  of  these 
articles  to  the  newspaper  world  in  particular  was  generally 
recognized,  and  they  have  to  this  day  served  as  a  guide  to  more 
than  one  perplexed  editor.  The  essay  is  reproduced  in  its 
entirety. 


It  was  foolish  on  the  part  of  a  certain  Englishman  to  ex- 
press his  astonishment  at  the  fluency  with  which  little  children 
speak  French  in  Paris.  But  it  would  be  unjust  to  laugh  at  a 
foreigner  admiring  the  consummate  ease  with  which  boys  and 
girls  of  ten  or  twelve  years  read  and  write  English  in  London 
or  Boston.  He  may  never  have  heard  of  children's  spending 
hundreds,  nay  thousands,  of  hours  in  learning  to  spell.  Persons 
whose  native  language,  be  it  Germanic  or  Slavic,  Semitic  or 
Finnic,  possesses  an  orthography  based  on  a*  more  or  less  strictly 
uniform  representation  by  written  signs  of  the  sounds  produced 
in  speaking,  may  behold  with  wonderment  how  easily  native 
readers  of  English  recognize  the  changing  value  or  the  value- 
lessness  of  their  w,  o,  g,  or  hf  in  such  words  as  how  and  hew  and 
who,  wrought  and  taught  and  draught,  brow  and  brought  and 
borough;  how  the  better-instructed  distinguish  in  reading  be- 
tween the  Thames  that  traverses  London  and  the  Thames  that 
flows  past  New  London,  and  discriminatingly  give  the  syllable 
Beau  the  sound  of  bo  in  Beauregard,  of  bu  in  Beaufort,  and  of 
be  in  Beauchamp;  how  some  do  not  forget  to  read  "  Ciren- 


92  MICHAEL   HEILPKIN 

cester  "  sisester,  and  "  Pontefract "  pomfret,  and  even  know 
how  to  pronounce  the  name  of  Sir  Patrick  McChombaich  de 
Colquhoun,  who  lately  told  us  all  about  Osman  Pasha's  origin 
and  appearance;  and  how  nimbly,  in  reproducing  sounds  on 
paper,  almost  all  choose,  according  to  the  meaning,  between 
you  and  yew,  hew  and  Hugh,  so  and  sow  and  sew. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  irregularities  of  English  spelling, 
which  are  the  stumbling-block  of  the  foreign  student  of  the 
language,  and  the  torment  of  many  an  English-speaking  learner, 
Matthew  Arnold  is  probably  right  when  he  tells  us  in  his  late 
report  as  one  of  her  Majesty's  Inspectors  of  Schools,  that  the 
British  nation  will  not  be  induced  to  take  to  writing,  "  Leed 
uz  not  into  temtaishon."  Nor  will  the  American  nation  very 
soon  either,  though  a  grand  innovation  of  this  character  might 
be  a  worthy  object  of  ambition  for  a  young  and  progressive 
republic.  Anglo-Saxons  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  are  gen- 
erally taught  to  read  and  write  correctly,  though  at  an  enormous 
sacrifice  of  time,  and  they  are  either  satisfied  with  their  early- 
acquired  knowledge,  or  gradually  improve  it.  With  slight  ex- 
ceptions all  English  words  are  written  and  printed  in  one  form 
by  all  educated  people,  and  when  that  form  is  especially  hard 
to  remember,  cheap  dictionaries,  which  can  everywhere  be 
found,  help  the  doubting  writer;  the  author  and  journalist 
often  rely  upon  the  tried  experience  of  their  compositor  and 
proof-reader. 

This  knowledge,  however,  and  the  common  aids  to  it,  are 
with  Anglo-Saxons  limited  to  what  is  generally  taught,  spoken 
of,  and  read,  and  but  a  little  more.  The  common  stock  of  the 
English  vocabulary,  scientific  terms,  Biblical  names,  names  con- 
spicuous in  history,  geography,  and  literature,  can  all  be  learned 
in  their  correct  form,  if  there  is  no  lack  of  will,  opportunity, 
and  time.  For  rarer  foreign  names  bulky  dictionaries  of  biog- 
raphy and  geography  or  voluminous  cyclopaedias  are  required, 
and  the  incompleteness  of  all  of  them,  and  the  inexactness  and 
inconsistency  of  most  of  them,  are  soon  discovered.  Then,  en- 
tirely new  names  appear  from  day  to  day  in  the  newspapers, 
and  the  reader  is  bewildered  by  the  variety  of  forms  in  which 
they  appear,  not  only  in  different  publications  but  often  in  the 
same.  What  causes  the  confusion  is  plain:  one  English  cor- 


AST   ESSAY   ON   FOREIGN   NAMES  93 

respondent  adopts  the  spelling  of  his  German  paper  or  in- 
formant; another  writes  the  name  as  he  finds  it  in  French; 
still  another  tries  a  transliteration  of  his  own ;  and  most  editors 
have  too  little  knowledge  and  time  to  examine  and  rectify. 
Here  the  barbarism  of  the  English  indifference  to  the  value  of 
letters  shows  itself  in  its  fulness.  Eeaders  look  at  the  names 
without  pronouncing  them,  and  writers  spell  at  random. 

Here  is  an  example  of  present  occurrence:  All  our  news- 
papers report  the  movements  of  "  Chefket "  Pasha.  This  name 
once  figured  in  the  Bulgarian  massacres.  It  is  now  connected 
with  the  defense  of  Plevna.  It  will  probably  be  remembered 
in  history,  it  matters  not  how  ingloriously.  But  how  have  we 
to  pronounce  it  ?  According  to  Turkish  rules  ?  Why,  the  Turks 
use  the  Arabic  alphabet,  and  not  the  Roman.  Is  the  ch  to  be 
pronounced  as  in  English  chaff?  Our  newspapers,  in  their  war 
reports,  constantly  use  tch  as  an  equivalent  for  this  sound  in 
Turkish  or  Russian  names,  such  as  Rustchuk,  Tultcha,  Tcher- 
kasski,  or  Gortchakoff.  Is  the  ch  the  equivalent  of  our  sh,  as 
in  the  French  chef,  of  a  guttural  kh  as  in  the  German  forms 
Chosrew,  Churschid,  etc.,  or  of  Ic,  as  in  our  rendering  of  classical 
or  Biblical  names,  such  as  Chephren,  Cheops,  Chephirah,  or 
Chemosh?  To  recapitulate,  is  the  Pasha's  name  Tchefket, 
Shefket,  Khefket,  or  Kefket  ?  There  is  absolutely  nothing  in 
the  rules  and  ways  of  English  journals,  British  or  American, 
to  indicate  it.  The  confusion  arises  from  the  indiscriminate  use 
of  foreign  combinations  of  letters,  though  they  may  be  to  us 
indefinite,  meaningless,  or  barbarous,  and  though  plain  and 
distinct  English  equivalents  may  be  at  hand. 

Of  course,  journals  of  the  better  class  would  soon  adopt  some 
tolerably  rational  rules  for  spelling  foreign  names,  if  such  were 
observed  by  authors  of  travels  and  history,  translators  of  foreign 
works,  map-makers,  and  especially  by  writers  for  cyclopaedias. 
But  this  is  far  from  being  generally  the  case.  To  give  an 
instance:  Suppose  a  journalist  interested  in  the  doings  and 
brewings  of  that  bellicose  little  state,  Servia,  looks  for  precise 
information  in  Ranke's  history  of  that  country,  as  republished 
in  English  in  the  Bohn  collection.  The  names  of  the  author 
and  the  publisher  are  certainly  both  good.  He  relies  on  the 
correctness  of  the  geographical  and  historical  names  and  terms 


94  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

contained  in  the  book,  and  on  occasion  reproduces  them  as  he 
finds  them,  thus:  Schabaz  (p.  72),  tfvornik  (74),  Kragu/evaz 
(77),  Uschize  (89),  Nisch  (98),  Poscfcarevaz  (127)— all 
German  names  of  places  well  known  to  English  gazetteers  as 
Shabatz,  Zvornik,  Kraguyevatz,  Uzhitze,  Nish,  and  Pozharevatz 
—  Milosch  (163),  Scheik  (237)  ;  and  he  may  not  recoil  from 
copying  Dschemasit  and  Krdsc/ialies  (69),  forgetting,  as  Bonn's 
translator  did,  that  the  dsch  of  Ranke's  original  is  our  short 
and  plain  ;*.  Or  suppose  our  journalist  to  be  anxious  to  obtain 
fresh  information  about  the  Caucasus,  the  easternmost  border 
of  the  present  theatre  of  war,  and  to  look  for  it  in  the  article 
assigned  to  it  in  the  new  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  "  (vol.  v., 
1876).  He  reads  of  "  Dych '."  Tau,  16,925  feet  high,  and  asks 
himself,  Is  the  name  of  that  lofty  mountain  Dytch,  Dysh,  or 
Dykh  ?  There  is  no  presumption  in  favor  of  the  common  Eng- 
lish pronunciation  as  in  rich  or  which,  for  he  finds  in  the  same 
article  "  Tc/ierek,"  "  Tchegen,"  etc.,  and  there  is  nobody  to  tell 
whether  the  writer  copied  an  English,  French,  or  German 
traveller.  A  similar  question  arises  when  he  reads  of  the  river 
"  Lachwa  " ;  is  it  Latch-,  Lash-,  or  Lakh-  ?  The  following  w, 
apparently  English,  is  no  evidence  in  favor  of  ch,  for  there  is 
"  Krestowa/a "  near  by,  a  Russian  adjective  which  ought  to 
have,  but  has  not,  been  converted  into  Krestovai/a.  And  there 
he  finds  also  "  Schach  Dagh,"  and  "  Uruc h,"  and  "  Tschechnia, 
or  the  country  of  the  Tchetchens  "  —  which  shows  that  there  is 
no  difference  in  the  same  name  between  ch,  tch,  and  tsch  — 
and  also  "  Schwxu."  for  Shumi  and  "  Dschufa."  for  Jufa. 

He  turns  to  his  English  atlases.  They  may  not  be  better, 
though  some  are,  than  the  two  before  us.  We  open  the  map 
of  Russia,  which  contains  the  Caucasus.  The  first  word  that 
strikes  us  in  one  atlas,  published  in  England,  is  "  Vladi- 
Caucas  "  —  half  Russian,  half  what  ?  —  for  Vladikavkaz.  We 
glance  at  the  other,  published  in  America,  and  find  north  of  that 
locality  to  the  left  Cubane,  and  to  the  right  Couma,  perfect 
French  names  of  the  rivers  which  English  geographers  call 
Kuban  and  Kuma.  We  turn  to  a  higher  latitude,  and  find  in 
the  former  atlas,  in  a  line,  "  Jaroslav,"  "  Jurievitz,"  and 
"  Jaransk,"  slightly  imperfect  German  names  of  the  towns 
which  Russians  and  English  call  Yaroslav  or  Yaroslavl,  Yurie- 


AN  ESSAY   ON   FOREIGN   NAMES  95 

vetz,  and  Yaransk,  and  in  the  latter,  in  the  same  line  continued, 
"  Ourjoum,"  "  Doubrovsko,"  and  "  Koungour,"  which  is  all 
French  again,  while  extra-English  "  Vetlooga,"  near  "  Yar- 
ansk," "Looki,"  etc.,  remind  us  that  our  map  is  not  bodily 
taken  from  a  French  atlas.  Shall  we  speak  of  war-maps  ?  The 
latest  of  the  great  London  Times  is  before  us.  We  look  for  the 
now  memorable  Yantra  River  and  its  chief  affluent,  the  Zlatar, 
and  find  them  marked  "  Jantra,"  "  Slatar,"  after  German  maps. 
A  prominent  American  daily,  in  maps  and  text,  for  months 
printed  "  Ardaban  "  instead  of  Ardahan,  though  its  rivals  and 
English  models  had  the  correct  name.  And  yet,  what  should 
we  say  on  constantly  finding  in  European  accounts  of  our  Vir- 
ginian campaigns  instead  of  Rappahannock  "  Rappabannock  "  ? 

And  here  is  one  of  the  latest  books  of  travel  and  statistics 
in  English,  Baker's  "Turkey"  (1877).  Its  contents  every- 
where display  the  author's  great  familiarity  with  the  localities 
and  things  described,  yet  he  misspells  names  and  terms  in  the 
regular  polyglot  way  of  English  tourists  and  guides.  His  work, 
though  the  result  of  close  observation,  may  have  been  somewhat 
hastily  brought  out  as  a  companion  book  to  Wallace's  "  Russia," 
which  preceded  it  only  by  a  few  months  —  and,  by  the  bye,  is 
generally  correct  in  the  minutest  particulars  —  but  that  circum- 
stance cannot  serve  to  excuse  such  un-English  spellings,  con- 
sidering the  real  names,  as  "  Milosc/i "  (repeated  over  and 
over  again),  "  Jantra,"  "Jenikoi,"  "  Vo/utza,"  "  Karlowa," 
"  .Dzftami,"  "Ztyumaa,"  and  "  Jenedscfre."  His  transliteration 
of  Turkish  vowels  is  equally  careless  and  capricious.  In  his 
appendix,  "  Glossary  of  a  few  Turkish  Terms,  etc.,"  we  find 
"dwnwm,"  "  gumrwk,"  "  nmfti,"  "  nmsselim,"  and  "  wokalwt " 
side  by  side  with  "  Anadooloo/'  "  koorban,"  and  "  timettoo/'  as 
well  as  with  "  mcmktar,"  "  tapow/'  and  "  vacemf." 

During  a  six  years'  editorial  connection  with  two  American 
cyclopaedic  publications,  embracing  twenty  volumes,  it  has  been 
the  writer's  duty  to  apply  a  strict  system  of  rational  orthog- 
raphy, uniform  in  respect  to  the  spelling  of  foreign  names  and 
words.  That  system  is  neither  too  elaborate  nor  too  learnedly 
profound  for  common  use,  nor  does  it  require  the  application  of 
signs  not  employed  in  printing  popular  English  works.  Com- 
bining uniformity  with  regard  for  more  or  less  uncontested 


96  MICHAEL   HEILPRIST 

usage,  the  rules  observed  are  far  from  being  the  most  systematic 
and  consistent  that  could  be  invented,  and  may  admit  of  consider- 
able improvement  as  Anglo-Saxon  writers  go  on  learning  foreign 
things  and  acquiring  orthographic  habits;  but  for  that  very 
reason  they  may  be  found  acceptable  to  writers  and  editors 
who,  though  desirous  to  be  accurate  and  free  from  literary 
barbarism,  can  yet  stand  such  inconsistency  as  calling  certain 
towns  —  to  return  to  the  Turkish  theatre  of  war  —  Nicopolis, 
Adrianople,  Etropol,  and  Yamboli,  without  regard  to  the  fact 
that  the  Greek  polls  was  originally  alike  in  all  of  these  names, 
and,  when  rendering  the  Hebrew  name  of  the  place  from  which 
Nahum  sprang,  dare  to  write  in  plain  English  Elkosh,  and  not 
'Elqosh,  though  this  is  good  in  Clark's  "  Keil  on  the  Minor 
Prophets."  Mainly  for  the  benefit  of  such  men  of  the  press 
we  propose  to  elucidate  these  rules  in  the  following  articles. 

II 

In  establishing  rules  for  the  spelling  of  foreign  names  a 
dividing  line  must  first  of  all  be  drawn  between  names  be- 
longing to  languages  which,  like  the  English,  use  the  Roman 
alphabet  and  those  belonging  to  languages  whose  alphabets  are 
different.  The  German  is  included  in  the  first  class  of  lan- 
guages, since,  besides  its  modified  form  of  the  Gothic,  it  also 
uses  the  Roman  letters. 

The  principal  rule  for  the  whole  first  division  is :  Write  every 
word  as  you  find  it  in  the  respective  language,  using  every 
letter  and  sign  commonly  or  frequently  used  in  English  works 
on  foreign  topics,  and,  whenever  practicable,  also  substitutes  for 
letters  and  signs  peculiar  to  certain  languages,  and  not  gen- 
erally understood  by  educated  English  readers.  To  give  ex- 
amples, write,  without  regard  to  pronunciation,  Alenqon, 
Angovleme,  Mezieres;  Cid,  Salva,  Maranon;  Minho,  Maran- 
hdo;  Cantu,  Civita  Vecchia;  Gotz,  Kuckert;  Mickiewicz, 
Czarioryski;  Deak,  Eotvos,  etc.  All  these  names  are  exactly 
so  written  by  writers  in  the  respective  languages,  French, 
Spanish,  Portuguese,  Italian,  German,  Polish,  and  Hungarian, 
and  the  peculiar  signs  which  mark  some  of  them  are  understood 
by  many  English  readers  and  already  widely  used  in  English 


AN  ESSAY   ON  FOKEIGN  NAMES  97 

literature.  To  write,  according  to  the  sound,  Tchartoryski, 
instead  of  Czartoryski,  would  be  as  absurd  as  writing  Tchal- 
deenee  for  Cialdini.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  equally 
useless  and  troublesome  to  write,  according  to  the  strict  Polish 
usage,  C  zQstochowa,  instead  of  the  common  substitute  Czensto- 
chowa,  or  Kosciuszko,  with  a  softened  s;  as  the  value  of  £  or  s 
is  hardly  known  to  one  out  of  ten  thousand  English  readers. 
The  mark  above  the  s  may  safely  be  ignored,  and  en  is  a  good 
substitute  for  ?.  Such  is  also  o  for  the  Danish  f,  as  in  J0rgen, 
and  for  the  Hungarian  5,  as  in  Petofi;  and  we  justly  write 
Abo,  instead  of  Abo,  as  the  Swedes  have  it,  and  call  the  great 
rivers  of  Sweden  Tornea,  Lulea,  Pitea,  etc.,  always  ignoring  the 
circular  mark  above  the  a,  although  it  changes  the  sound.  Of 
course,  all  this  refers  only  to  the  general  use  of  forms,  when 
we  apply  our  own  names  to  men  or  places;  when,  in  an  ex- 
planatory way,  the  original  rendering  is  to  be  fully  stated,  the 
strictest  reproduction  is  required. 

An  important  exception  to  the  general  rule  is  this:  When- 
ever there  is  a  well-established  English  form  for  a  foreign  name, 
that  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  stricter  national  form.  Hardly 
anybody  writes  Venezia  for  Venice,  Napoli  for  Naples,  Kjoben- 
havn  for  Copenhagen,  Warszawa  for  Warsaw,  Trento  or  Trient 
for  Trent,  Praha  for  Prague,  or  Wien  for  Vienna;  few  write 
Koln  for  Cologne,  Milnchen  for  Munich,  or  Livorno  for  Leg- 
horn; and  the  best  English  usage  still  prefers  Lyons,  Mar- 
seilles, Brussels,  Ghent,  Mentz,  Leipsic,  Cleves,  and  Treves, 
to  the  national  names  Lyon,  Marseille,  Bruxelles,  Gand,  Mainz, 
Leipzig,  Kleve,  and  Trier.  The  time  is  surely  not  far  off  when 
writers  of  eminence  will  inaugurate  sounder  literary  usages, 
but  it  will  be  the  task  of  new  Macaulays,  Carlyles,  and  Pres- 
cotts  to  lead  in  the  reform;  writers  for  cyclopaedias,  gazet- 
teers, and  journals  can  do  no  better  than  slowly  follow. 

In  the  same  way  in  which  English  history  speaks  of  the  treaty 
of  Ghent,  of  the  battle  of  Leipsic,  of  the  council  of  Trent,  or 
of  the  capture  of  Warsaw,  giving  preference  to  its  own  estab- 
lished forms  above  similar  and  more  correct  foreign  ones,  it  has 
also  arbitrarily  decided  between  the  rival  claims  of  nationalities 
as  to  names  of  places,  and  there  can  be  no  appeal  from  its 
decision.  We  must  still  state,  following  our  German  guides  in 


98  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

history,  that  Wallenstein  was  assassinated  at  Eger  in  Bohemia, 
though  we  have  learned  that  the  Bohemian  name  of  that  town 
is  Cheb;  that  Maria  Theresa  appeared  before  the  Hungarian 
diet  at  Presburg,  though  Hungarians  correctly  tell  us  that  their 
diet  was  then  held  at  Pozsony;  that  the  capital  of  Austrian 
Poland  is  Lemberg,  though  the  Poles  call  it  Lwow,  and  the 
capital  of  Croatia,  Agram,  though  called  Zagreb  by  the  Croats. 
This  historical  usage,  however,  must  be  confined  within  narrow 
limits.  Wherever  the  proper  national  form  is  similar  to  the 
historical,  and  the  latter  not  exclusively  used,  the  former  is  to 
be  selected.  Thus,  Poltava  is  to  be  preferred  to  Pultowa,  Kalisz 
to  Kalisch,  Breisach  to  Brisach,  Muhlhausen  to  Mulhouse,  Basel 
to  Basle  or  Bale,  Bern  to  Berne,  Zurich  to  Zurich,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  Komdrom  is  not  to  be  substituted  for  Comorn, 
Torun  for  Thorn,  or  Gdansk  for  Dantzic.  As  a  rule  it  can  be 
stated  that  the  English  usage  decidedly  prefers  the  German 
names  to  the  Polish  in  Posen  and  other  Prussian  provinces, 
and  to  the  Czechic  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  but  more  rarely 
to  the  Magyar  and  Slavic  in  the  countries  of  the  Hungarian 
crown;  the  Polish,  with  few  exceptions,  to  the  German  or 
Russian  in  the  so-called  Kingdom  of  Poland  and  in  Galicia; 
the  Russian  always  to  the  Polish  in  Lithuania,  Volhynia, 
Podolia,  and  Ukraine;  and  the  French  sometimes  to  the  Ger- 
man on  or  near  the  Rhine.  Such  exceptional  French  names, 
however,  as  Aix-la-Chapelle  for  Aachen,  Coire  for  Chur, 
Lucerne  for  Luzem,  are  becoming  rare,  and  Soleure  may  now 
safely  be  given  up  for  Solothurn,  Deux-Ponts  for  Zweibriicken, 
and  Juliers  for  Julich.  Mayence  is  probably  as  often  used  as 
Mentz,  and  Mainz  may  be  equally  good;  but  the  writer  must 
make  his  choice,  in  this  as  in  similar  cases,  and  cling  to  it, 
refraining  from  giving  us  a  sing-song  like  this  (in  Murray's 
"  Continent ")  :  "  Mayence,  the  Moguntiacum  of  the  Romans. 
.  .  .  The  most  remarkable  objects  in  Mainz,  ...  St.  Boniface. 
.  .  .  first  archbishop  of  Mayence.  .  .  .  The  Elector  of  Mainz. 
...  Its  tower  commands  the  best  view  of  Mayence.  .  .  . 
Mainz  was  the  cradle  of  the  art  of  printing.  .  .  .  Mayence  car- 
ries on  a  great  trade.  A  bridge  .  .  .  unites  Mainz  to  Cassel,  or 
Castel.  .  .  .  Station  in  Mayence,"  etc. 

Classical  Greek  names  must  be  exceptionally  grouped  with 


AN   ESSAY   ON  FOREIGN   NAMES  99 

those  originally  written  in  Roman  letters.  The  English  have 
taken  them  all  not  from  the  original  texts  but  from  Latin 
transcribers,  and  only  such  independent  specialists  as  Grote 
can  afford  to  call  Hellenic  men  and  places  by  their  proper 
Hellenic  names,  such  as  Alkibiades,  Kleisthenes,  Kyrene,  and 
Pheidon,  for  which  English  writers  have  learned  from  Cicero, 
Nepos,  and  other  Romans  to  substitute  Alcibiades,  Clisthenes, 
Cyrene,  and  Phidon.  Those  ancient  Persian,  Median,  Lydian, 
and  Egyptian  names,  too,  which  we  have  learned  from  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  must  remain  in  popular  works  as  the  Latin 
texts  have  them:  Cyrus,  Cyaxares,  Croasus,  Amasis,  etc.  The 
Latin  terminations  are  often  dropped  or  altered,  and  the  popular 
English  names  which  arise  from  the  change  are  universally 
adopted.  Thus,  even  Grote  knows  only  King  Philip,  Athens, 
and  Thebes,  not  Philippus,  Athense,  or  Thebse.  Where  our 
knowledge  is  derived  from  sources  discovered  in  modern  times, 
such  as  hieroglyphs  or  cuneiform  inscriptions,  strict  trans- 
literation is  required.  We  then  say,  with  George  Rawlinson, 
Sheshonk,  Osorkon,  etc.,  or,  after  Brugsch,  Sebek-hotep,  Shasu, 
etc.,  omitting  the  latter's  dot  under  the  h  in  "  hotep,"  as  proper 
only  in  scholarly  dissertations,  and  substituting  in  "  Shasu  " 
for  his  s  the  plain  English  equivalent  sh.  Our  Teh  and  k  are 
good  equivalents  for  his  X  and  q.  The  Egyptologist's  or  As- 
syriologist's  way  of  spelling  must,  of  course,  be  closely  studied 
before  transliteration  is  attempted.  The  ch  alone,  as  found  in 
various  applications  in  Brugsch,  Ebers,  Rouge,  Chabas,  Mari- 
ette,  and  others,  has  caused  a  great  deal  of  confusion  in  English 
books.  Hence  it. probably  is,  e.g.,  that  the  classical  Cheops 
appears  as  Shuf u  in  Rawlinson's  '  Manual  of  Ancient  History ' 
and  in  the  *  American  Cyclopaedia,'  and  as  Khufu  in  the  Eng- 
lish edition  of  Lenormant's  *  Ancient  History  of  the  East,'  in 
the  new  '  Britannica,'  and  in  the  '  Condensed  American  Cyclo- 
paedia,' which,  on  better  information,  dropped  the  form  used 
by  its  predecessor.  Philip  Smith,  in  his  '  Ancient  History  of 
the  East,'  avoiding  a  difficulty,  writes  Chufu.  But  here  again 
the  question  arises,  How  is  the  word  to  be  pronounced?  Was 
the  name  of  the  pyramid-builder  Tchufu,  Shufu,  Khufu,  or 
Kufu? 

Corresponding  to  the  difference  between  classical  and  modern 


100  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

Greek  names  is  the  difference  between  Biblical  and  post-Biblical 
Hebrew  names.  For  the  Biblical,  which  the  English  have  not 
taken  from  the  Hebrew  or  Greek  originals,  but  from  the  Vul- 
gate and  the  patristic  writers,  we  have  a  plain  rule:  They  are 
to  be  written  as  we  find  them  in  the  English  Bible.  To  call 
(in  popular  writing,  we  repeat)  the  great  Hebrew  prophets  by 
their  original  names,  Mosheh,  Yeshayahu,  and  Yirmeyahu,  in- 
stead of  Moses,  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah,  or  the  first  and  last 
Evangelists  Matthaeus  or  Mattithyahu  and  Yohannes  or  Yo- 
hanan,  would  not  be  quite  as  absurd  as  to  speak  of  Yitzhak 
Newton  or  Yaakob  Astor,  but,  to  say  the  least,  unnecessarily 
strange.  The  names  of  all  post-Biblical  Jews,  too,  if  derived 
from  the  Scriptures,  must  retain  their  Anglicized  form,  and 
it  matters  not  whether  the  bearers  of  them  were  Talmudists, 
mediaeval  rabbis,  or  modern  celebrities.  We  thus  speak  alike 
of  Moses  (not  Mosheh)  Maimonides  and  Moses  Mendelssohn, 
of  Solomon  (not  Shelomoh)  ben  Gabirol  and  Solomon  Judah 
Rappaport,  of  Judah  (not  Yehudah)  the  Holy  and  Judah 
Touro.  On  the  other  hand,  a  strict  transliteration  is  demanded 
of  rabbinical  and  other  more  or  less  pure  Hebrew  names  which! 
are  not  taken  from  Scriptures,  and  therefore  have  no  popular 
English  forms.  And  in  this  field,  he  who  writes  on  Jewish  sub- 
jects, if  he  is  not  himself  possessed  of  sound  Hebrew  knowledge, 
will  have  to  look  for  trustworthy  English  guides,  and  examine 
closely  his  German  or  French  authorities  before  adopting  their 
spellings.  Unfortunately,  careless  imitations,  even  by  writers 
of  extensive  knowledge,  are  frequent,  and  cyclopaedias  swarm 
with  such  names  as  Nac/iman,  $akkai,  and  Z'ebi,  in  which  ch,  s, 
and  z  (all  correct  in  a  German  authority)  improperly  stand 
for  the  Hebrew  letters  of  which  the  English  equivalents  are  h 
(or  '&),  z,  and  tz  (or  is). 

How  far  this  carelessness  is  carried  may  be  illustrated  by  one 
striking  example.  Samuel  Davidson,  "  D.D.  of  the  University 
of  Halle,  and  LL.D.,  London,"  has  translated  Fiirst's  '  Hebrew 
and  Chaldee  Lexicon,'  inclusive  of  his  introductory  "  Contri- 
bution to  the  History  of  Hebrew  Lexicography."  In  the  lexicon 
proper  the  translator  fortunately  followed  good  English  models, 
such  as  Robinson's  Gesenius,  and,  deviating  from  his  author, 
wrote  Rashi,  Mishna,  etc.,  not  Raschi,  Mischna.  But  for  the 


AN  ESSAY   ON   EOKEIGN   NAMES          101 

introductory  essay  on  lexicography  lie  had  no  English  model 
before  him,  and  he  therefore  blindly  copied  "  Asche "  (for 
Ashe),  "Ha/a"  (for  Haya  or  <Haya),  "/ezira"  (for  Yet- 
zira),  "CM)ib"  (for  Habib),  "  Macfcasora  "  (for  Mahazora), 
"  Zemach"  (for  Tzemah),  "  Jachja.  Abu-$akariy/a  "  (for 
Yahya  Abu-Zakariyya),  "Abu  Jusuf  '0/z-asdai"  (for  Abu- 
Yusuf  Hasdai),  "MazliacTz/'  (for  Matzliah),  etc.,  etc.,  and 
even  "  Menac&em,"  "  Esra,"  and  "  Noacfo  "  —  good  Biblical 
names  in  German  —  for  Menahem,  Ezra,  and  Noah !  Thus, 
the  English  translator  of  a  great  Hebrew  lexicon  "  to  the  Old 
Testament,"  in  copying  his  elaborately  correct  German  author, 
sets  an  example  of  ignoring  both  the  English  Bible  and  the 
Hebrew  alphabet. 

Ill 

To  localities  and  persons  belonging  to  countries  more  or  less 
directly  ruled  by  the  British,  as  a  matter  of  course,  names  in 
English  forms  or  names  adopted  by  the  English  are  to  be  ap- 
plied. In  most  cases  the  names  are  fully  established  by  usage, 
and  however  strange  the  spelling  may  be,  it  must  be  adhered  to, 
as  long  as  we  submit,  in  this  country,  to  the  observance  of  such 
substitution  of  signs  for  sounds  as  Shawangurik  for  Shonggum. 
Nothing  more  barbarous  will  be  discovered  among  the  names 
referring  to  Canada,  Australia,  Cape  Colony,  or  any  other  of 
the  domains  of  Great  Britain.  The  whole  of  India,  native  as 
well  as  properly  British,  with  all  its  history  and  literature,  falls 
in  this  category.  English  consonants  and  English  vowels,  in 
their  most  common  signification,  must  be  made  to  represent 
sounds  originating  in  Sanskrit,  Pali,  Tamil,  Telugu,  Cingalese, 
and  other  languages.  And  the  most  customary  spellings  appear 
to  be  the  most  appropriate,  at  least  until  the  lately  officially  in- 
troduced forms,  deviating  from  the  traditional  ones,  are  adopted 
by  a  large  number  of  leading  writers  on  East  India  topics. 
However  desirable  the  change  from  arbitrary  ways  to  rational 
rules  may  be,  it  is  yet  too  early  for  popular  writers  on  a  variety 
of  subjects,  who  cannot  claim  the  privileges  of  learned  special- 
ists, to  write  Kashmir,  Rdjputdnd,  Bhutan,  Panjab,  Satlej,  Nar- 
l>add,  Ldhor,  Multdn,  Hugli,  Nasir  Uddin,  Jaldl  Uddin,  Sirdj 
Ud  Dauld,  instead  of  Cashmere,  Eajpootana,  Bootan,  Punjaub, 


102  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Sutlej,  Nerbudda,  Lahore,  Moolian,  Hoogly,  Nasireddin  or 
Nasir  ed-Din,  Jelaleddin,  Surajah  Dowlah. 

Names  belonging  to  the  independent  countries  of  the  East 
whose  recent  history  is  closely  connected  with  that  of  the  British 
advance  in  that  part  of  the  world,  such  as  Afghanistan,  Beloo- 
chistan,  Burmah,  Siam,  and  China,  follow  the  rule  applying  to 
British  India.  It  is  by  British  travellers  and  merchants,  gen- 
erals and  governors,  that  the  names  have  been  introduced  or 
made  popular  among  English-speaking  people,  and  the  forms 
introduced  have  become  established  and  historically  traditional. 
It  is  therefore  proper  to  write  Cabool,  Candahar,  Ghuzni,  Pe- 
shawer,  Hindoo  Koosh,  Belooches,  Kelat,  Rangoon,  Irrawaddy, 
Foochow,  Chingchoo,  instead  of  the  literarily  more  accurate 
Kabul,  Kandahar,  Ghazni,  Peshawar,  Hindu  Kush,  Baluches, 
Khelat,  Rangun,  Irawadi,  Futchau,  Tchingtchu.  Names  be- 
longing to  all  other  parts  of  Asia,  excepting  a  number  popularly 
figuring  in  history  or  travels,  such  as  Samarcand,  Mecca, 
Moc/ia,  or  Genghis,  are  subject  to  transliteration  from  the  orig- 
inal languages.  And  so  are  also  all  African  names,  excepting 
those  belonging  to  countries  ruled  by  European  nations,  whose 
spellings  —  French  in  Algeria,  Portuguese,  Spanish,  English, 
or  Dutch  in  other  parts  —  must  be  observed.  Well-established 
historical  names,  such  as  Cairo,  Tripoli,  or  Algiers,  will  nat- 
urally form  exceptions. 

We  now  come  to  the  principal  part  of  our  subject,  the  rules 
of  transliteration,  such  as  are  to  be  applied,  with  the  restric- 
tions above  alluded  to,  to  names  belonging  to  the  Russian,  Serb, 
Bulgarian,  Turkish,  Persian,  Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  all  other 
languages  which  use  an  alphabet  different  from  the  Roman. 
Among  these  is  to  be  included  the  Wallach  or  Ruman  language, 
which  uses  two  alphabets,  of  which  the  Roman  is  changed  from 
our  forms  by  a  number  of  peculiar  marks.  The  general  rule 
is  this:  Use  the  consonants  in  the  English,  and  the  vowels  in 
the  Continental  acceptation  of  their  sounds,  the  former  in  an 
unmistakable  way.  Let  us  specify. 

Use  tch,  not  the  dubious  ch,  nor  the  German  tsch,  nor  the 
Polish  cz,  for  expressing  the  terminal  consonantal  sound  con- 
tained in  hatch,  hitch,  couch;  thus:  Kamtchatka,  Tchad,  Tcher- 
navoda,  and  not  Kamchatka,  Chad,  or  Czernavoda,  which  are 


AN   ESSAY   ON   FOREIGN   NAMES          103 

all  liable  to  mispronunciation.  The  imitation  of  German  ren- 
derings is  here  productive  of  the  strangest  and  most  unpro- 
nounceable combinations.  It  is  bad  enough  that  we  have  to 
employ  five  consonants  in  order  to  render  one  with  which  the 
Russian  begins  the  names  Shtcherbatoff,  Shtchukin:  is  it  not 
absurd  to  add  two  others,  which  are  needed  in  German,  but  just 
deprive  our  English  combination  of  any  meaning,  and  to  write 
thus:  Schtscherbatoff,  Schtschukin?  One  of  the  commonest, 
and  the  least  pardonable,  mistakes  in  English  is  the  rendering  in 
various  forms,  by  the  same  writers,  of  the  Russian  terminal 
syllable  vitch,  always  corresponding  to  our  son  in  Johnson,  Rob- 
ertson, etc.  Thus,  even  so  excellent  a  work  as  the  "  Encyclo- 
paedia of  Chronology,'7  by  Woodward  and  Gates  (1872),  has 
"  Lermontov  .  .  .  Ivaxiovich,"  "  Dolgorouki  .  .  .  Fedoro?n£c7&," 
"  Bogdanowifc  .  .  .  Fedorow'cz,"  and  many  similarly  contra- 
dictory patronymics.  In  Polish  names,  like  Mickiewicz, 
Niemcewicz,  only  wicz  is  correct,  that  being  the  Poles'  own 
spelling  in  Roman  letters. 

Use  ;  as  the  common  equivalent  of  the  German  dsch  and  Er. 
dj  in  Slavic,  Asiatic,  and  African  names,  writing  Tunja,  Eski 
Juma,  Bazar jik,  Kainarji,  Jiddah,  Jebel  el-Jowf,  Abulfaraj, 
Jezireh,  and  dj  only  between  vowels,  as  in  Dobrudja,  Khodja 
Balkan,  Aladja  Dagh,  Nedjed,  Hedjaz,  in  order  to  indicate 
clearly  the  shortness  of  the  first  vowel.  Kustendje,  however, 
seems  to  be  too  firmly  established  in  English  usage  to  be  changed 
into  Kustenje.  Palgrave,  in  his  "  Central  and  Eastern  Arabia," 
often  strangely  reverses  the  rule,  writing  Djowf,  Djobbah, 
Hejaz,  Nejed. 

In  the  same  class  of  names  sh  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew 
shin,  German  sch,  and  French  ch.  Write  Shammai,  Shemtob, 
Hashem,  Pushkin,  Milosh,  Shuvaloff,  Shumla,  Pelishat,  Radi- 
shevo,  Shefket;  not  Schammai,  etc.,  Radichevo,  Chefket. 

Zh  is  our  best  equivalent  for  the  French  j,  for  which  the  Ger- 
mans in  maps  and  books  now  frequently  use  sh  (or  z  as  they  also 
use  c  for  our  tch,  and  s  for  sh~).  Write  Nizhni  Novgorod,  Zhito- 
mir, Voronezh,  Derzhavin,  Pozharski,  Zhukovski;  not  Nijni, 
Jitomir,  Voronej,  as  the  French  write,  and  after  them  many 
English  geographers,  including  A.  Keith  Johnston. 

Tz  and  ts  are  equally  good  for  the  transliteration  of  the  cor- 


104  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

responding  sound  in  Hebrew,  Russian,  and  other  languages; 
yet  we  prefer  the  former,  which  agrees  with  the  German,  in 
Semitic,  Slavic,  and  other  names,  such  as  Tzarphati,  Tzana, 
Vorontzoff,  Olonetz,  Tzaritzyn,  and  the  now  so  often  mentioned 
Grivitza,  Lovatz,  and  Vratza,  and  ts  in  Japanese  names,  such 
as  Satsuma,  Matsumae,  or  Butsu,  which  follow  the  usage  estab- 
lished by  the  English  in  Chinese  names  (Yangtse,  Tientsin, 
Tsinan,  etc.).  Great  caution  must  be  observed  in  transliterating 
after  German  maps,  some  geographers  applying  West-Slavic 
spellings  to  South-Slavic  countries.  Thus,  Kanitz's  latest  map 
of  Bulgaria  has  Grivica,  Lovec,  Vraca. 

Y  is  the  general  equivalent  for  the  Semitic  yod,  as  well  as 
for  the  German  j,  the  copying  of  which  must  be  strictly  avoided. 
Write  Yarhi,  Yomtob,  Ydkub,  Yusuf,  Yezid,  Yermdk,  Tcher- 
nayeff,  Yeni  Zaghra,  Yenikdi,  not  Jarhi,  etc.  Among  the  few 
exceptions  founded  on  usage  is  Bajazet;  Jassy  and  Janina  it  is 
perhaps  time  to  abandon  for  Yassy  and  Yanina.  After  a  con- 
sonant in  the  same  syllable  i  is  properly  substituted,  as  in  Biela 
(for  Byela  =  Ger.  Bjela),  and  ai,  ei,  oi,  ui  are  used  instead  of 
the  stricter  forms  ay,  ey  (=Ger.  aj,  ej),  etc.,  as  in  Turtukai, 
Alexei,  Tolstoi,  Shuiski.  After  i  the  y,  corresponding  to  the 
German  ;  in  similar  positions,  is  dropped,  as  in  Dolni  Monastyr, 
Gorni  Dubnilc,  Dolgoruki,  Baratynski. 

For  a  discriminating  use  of  v  and  w  a  few  important  rules 
can  be  established.  W  prevails  in  Arabic  names,  such  as 
Moawiyah,  Merwan,  Walid,  Abul-Wefa,  Massowah,  or  Asswan, 
and  v  is  exclusively  to  be  used  in  Russian,  South-Slavic,  and 
Wallach  names.  The  Russian,  Serb,  Bulgarian,  and  Wallach 
contain  no  such  sound  or  letter  as  w  (while  the  Polish  has  only 
the  letter,  which  is  equivalent  to  our  v).  To  write,  as  is  but 
too  often  done,  Paskewiich,  Wasili,  Wolhynia,  Wladimir,  or 
Wologda,  is,  therefore,  just  as  improper  as  to  write,  in  Hebrew 
or  Greek  history,  Lewi  for  Levi,  Washti  for  Vashti,  or  Ewagoras 
for  Evagoras.  Wilna  (derived  from  the  Polish  Wilno~)  and 
Widdin  are  exceptions  founded  on  historical  usage.  In  the  ter- 
minal syllables  of  Russian  names  of  places,  such  as  Azov,  Tam- 
bov, Kozlov,  Saratov,  Tchernigov,  Pskov,  Ostrov,  Kishinev, 
Kiev,  ov  and  ev  are  properly  used  where  the  Russians  have  the 
corresponding  letters,  but  pronounce  off,  eff,  yet  not  in  the 


AN   ESSAY   ON   FOREIGN   NAMES  105 

oblique  cases.  In  similarly-ending  family  names,  such  as  Ro- 
manoff, Orloff,  Lermontoff,  Melikoff,  Ignatieff,  Skobeleff,  and 
Lazareff,  the  sound  is  followed  instead  of  the  letter,  owing  to 
the  habit  of  the  Russians  of  so  signing  their  own  names,  as  pro- 
nounced in  the  nominative,  whenever  they  use  the  Roman  alpha- 
bet in  correspondence  with  Englishmen  or  Frenchmen.  Eugene 
Schuyler  ("  Turkistan,"  1876)  and  D.  Mackenzie  Wallace  use 
in  both  classes  of  names  of  and  ef,  which,  if  consistently  done, 
can,  of  course,  not  be  objected  to. 

Kh  answers  to  the  full  guttural  sound  (Ger.  ch,  Sp.  /)  in 
Slavic,  Turkish,  Tartar,  Persian,  and  other  Eastern  names,  such 
as  Kherson,  Kharkov,  Astrakhan,  Kiakhta,  Akhaltzikh,  Khiva, 
Khorasan,  Khuzistan,  Nakhimoff,  Mukhtar,  Khurshid;  h  an- 
swers to  softer  gutturals  in  Eastern  tongues,  as  in  the  names 
Hariri  (Ger.  CTiariri),  Harizi,  Hefetz,  Ahmed  (as  in  the  Bibli- 
cal Hebron,  Heshbon,  Hiddekel,  Hiram),  as  well  as  to  the 
Hebrew  lie  (Ger.  h}  ;  Te  (in  non-Biblical  names)  to  both  the 
Semitic  Jcaph  and  Jcoph,  as  in  Zakkai,  Akiba,  Koreish,  Sakkara. 
CJi,  though  good  in  classical  and  Biblical  names,  has  no  place 
whatever  in  strict  English  transliteration. 

G  is  to  be  used  only  in  its  hard  acceptation,  j  replacing  the 
soft  sound.  Gh  occurs,  but  rarely,  in  Eastern  names. 

Little  specification  is  required  as  to  the  vowels.  Concurrent 
or  single  authoritative  spellings  by  German,  Italian,  and  other 
Continental  writers  may  generally  be  followed  without  hesita- 
tion. The  French  alone  of  the  leading  Continental  languages 
forms  an  exception.  Write,  therefore,  Selim,  Ibrahim,  Aziz, 
Hamid,  Kasim,  Katif,  and  not  Seleem,  Ibraheem,  Azeez,  Ha- 
meed,  etc.,  as  Palgrave  (in  "  Arabia  ")  does  after  Lane  (in 
"  Modern  Egyptians  "),  using  also  his  special  diacritical  marks; 
Rashid,  Ghadir,  Hcibib,  Ahin,  as  in  Burton's  "  Unexplored 
Syria  "  (1872),  not  Rasheed,  etc. ;  All,  Raghib,  Ratib,  Sherif,  as 
in  McCoan's  "Egypt"  (1877),  not  Alee,  etc. ;  Yusuf,  Mustapha, 
Murad,  Kurdistan,  Turkistan,  Stambul,  Sukhum,  Batum,  Er- 
zerum,  Urumiah,  Burumtchuk,  not  Yoosoof  or  Yousouf,  etc. 
Such  spellings  as  Ooroomidh  or  Booroomtchook  are  fortunately 
becoming  rare. 

Two  exceptions,  however,  must  here  be  stated:  The  French 
form  ou  is  still  frequently  preferred  to  u  (in  its  Italian  and 


106  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

German  value)  in  historically  established  names,  such  as  Ha- 
roun,  Mahmoud,  Aboukir,  Roum,  Roumelia,  though  even  Gib- 
bon writes  Harun  and  Mahmud;  and  oo  is  still  more  generally 
used  in  names  belonging  to  parts  of  Africa  the  exploration  of 
which  is  mainly  or  in  great  part  due  to  early  English  travellers, 
whose  spellings  have  naturally  become  popular.  Such  names 
are  Borgoo,  Bornoo,  Timbuctoo,  Gaboon,  Darfoor,  Ehartoom, 
Bambook,  Moorzook.  More  recent  English  explorers  write 
Ukerewe,  Lulua,  Lualaba,  etc. 

We  conclude  our  remarks  by  briefly  adding  that  the  German 
diphthongs  do  not  always  correspond  to  ours  —  au,  e.  g.,  answer- 
ing to  ow;  that  o  and  u  may  be  borrowed  from  the  German  and 
Hungarian  for  the  transliteration  of  Turkish  names,  such  as 
Kadikoi,  Baluklii ;  and  that  our  a  is  to  be  used  indiscriminately 
(in  popular  writing)  both  for  the  Semitic  aleph  and  ayin,  just 
as  the  Authorized  version  of  the  Bible  used  it  in  Adoniram  and 
Adullarrij  Amaziah  and  Amasa. 


V 

COMMENTS   ON   THE   RUSSO-TURKISH   WAR 

During  the  Russo-Turkish  war  of  1877-78  Mr.  Heilprin 
resumed  his  semi-military  contributions  to  the  Nation,  following 
from  week  to  week  the  operations  in  the  field  with  the  same 
exactitude  and  fulness  of  knowledge  he  had  previously  shown 
in  his  notes  on  the  Franco-German  war.  He  was  quite  as  famil- 
iar with  localities  in  the  East  as  in  the  West  of  Europe,  or  with 
our  own  battlefields  during  the  Civil  War.  It  has  been  said, 
and  I  believe  truly,  that  he  could,  down  to  his  last  years,  locate 
from  memory  the  position  of  both  the  Northern  and  Southern 
armies  on  any  given  day  of  the  struggle.  I  select,  again  at  ran- 
dom, a  few  of  these  weekly  comments  on  the  progress  of  the 
Russo-Turkish  war. 

Nation,  October  25, 1877: 

"  Whether  the  report  from  Tiflis  that  Mukhtar  Pasha's  total 
loss  in  the  battle  of  October  15  was  about  sixteen  thousand,  be 
nearer  the  truth  than  that  other  report  from  Karajal  that  he  lost 
eighteen  thousand  in  prisoners  alone,  it  is  certain  that  he  suf- 
fered a  crushing  defeat.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  he  suc- 
ceeded in  entering  the  fortifications  of  Kars  with  three-fifths 
of  his  army,  which  seems  to  have  consisted  of  not  fully  forty 
thousand  men.  Great  as  may  have  been  his  folly  in  so  long 
exposing  himself  to  the  sudden  attacks  of  an  overwhelming  force 
while  he  could  safely  rest  under  the  shelter  of  his. fortress,  due 
credit  must  be  given  to  the  Russian  commanders  for  the  skilful 
execution  of  the  probably  long-meditated  blow.  Of  these  Gen. 
Heiman,  who  carried  the  Turkish  centre,  Olya  Tepe,  seems  to 
have  borne  the  brunt  of  the  fighting.  What  the  ultimate  fruits 
of  this  great  victory  will  be  to  the  Russians,  it  is  too  early  to 
express  an  opinion  upon.  Much  will  depend  upon  the  weather, 
which  may  or  may  not  prevent  an  advance  upon  Erzerum,  and 


108  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

much  also  on  the  amount  of  supplies  accumulated  in  Kars,  which 
will  probably  be  blockaded,  and  can  hardly  count  on  the  speedy 
approach  of  a  relieving  force,  though  reinforcements  for  Erze- 
rum  are  already  hurried  on  from  Constantinople,  via  Trebizond, 
and  from  Batum.  Among  the  immediate  fruits  is  the  evacuation 
of  Russian  Armenia  by  Ismail  Pasha,  who  has  recrossed  the  fron- 
tier near  Zor,  followed  by  Tergukassoff.  Lazareff,  who  is  re- 
ported to  have  turned  against  him,  is  too  far  off  and  separated 
by  too  powerful  barriers  to  intercept  his  retreat  towards  Erze- 
rum  by  the  Diadin  and  Karakilissa  road.  The  Russians'  loss 
in  the  battle  is  not  yet  fully  known;  in  carrying  Aladja  Dagh 
they  lost  fourteen  hundred  and  forty  killed  and  wounded. 


Active  hostilities  have  been  resumed  before  Plevna,  commenc- 
ing with  a  heavy  cannonade  upon  single  points  of  the  Turkish 
positions.  This  was  considered  by  the  Russians  as  very  effec- 
tive, and  the  Turks  were  believed  to  have  more  or  less  fully 
evacuated  the  second  Grivitza  redoubt.  On  Wednesday,  Octo- 
ber 17,  the  Czar,  apparently  on  receiving  the  congratulations 
of  his  staff  on  the  victory  of  his  army  in  Asia,  solemnly  declared 
that  he  and  all  the  members  of  the  Imperial  family  would  remain 
with  the  troops  to  share  in  their  labors  and  witness  their  deeds, 
adding  that,  '  if  necessary,  all  Russia  will,  as  once  before,  take 
up  arms.'  The  first  labors  in  the  new  contest  for  Plevna,  how- 
ever, were  assigned,  surprisingly  enough,  not  to  the  Russian 
troops,  so  strongly  reinforced  by  the  Guard,  but  to  the  Rumanian 
allies.  On  Friday  they  assaulted  the  Grivitza  redoubt,  but  were 
repulsed  before  gaining  it.  They  made  another  attempt,  and 
the  three  foremost  battalions  leaped  into  the  trenches,  but,  the 
Turks  concentrating  against  them,  they  were  forced  to  withdraw, 
after  an  hour's  sanguinary  struggle.  The  total  loss,  according 
to  the  Russian  official  bulletin,  was  upwards  of  nine  hundred 
killed  and  wounded.  About  the  beginning  of  the  contest  the 
Russians  seem  to  have  made  a  feeble  show  of  fighting  on  the 
opposite  side,  in  order  to  divert  Osman  Pasha's  attention  from 
the  real  point  of  attack.  The  Turks  in  Plevna  are  reported  to 
be  constructing  a  new  interior  line  of  defences.  Their  condi- 
tion as  to  health  and  provisions  is  variously  talked  of.  It  is 


COMMENTS   ON   THE   RUSSO-TURKISH   WAR    109 

very  bad,  if  deserters  are  '  reliable  gentlemen ' ;  it  is  very  good, 
if  the  London  Standard's  correspondence  from  Plevna  is  trust- 
worthy. According  to  this  source  '  six  thousand  provision-carts 
are  now  on  the  road  to  Plevna  '  —  a  piece  of  information  which 
may  possibly  compensate  the  Russians  for  what  they  lately  suf- 
fered through  a  similar  feat  of  reporting  enterprise,  for  which 
another  Standard  correspondent  has  been  expelled  by  them  from 
Rumania.  The  Standard's  impartiality  is  thus  vindicated. 


Suleiman  Pasha,  active  and  daring  as  he  is,  has  found  the 
Russians  too  strong  and  the  roads  too  bad  for  an  aggressive  move- 
ment on  his  part,  and  after  reconnoitring  the  enemy's  positions 
west  of  the  lower  Lorn,  has  fallen  back  on  the  Rustchuk-Rasgrad 
line,  retaining  advanced  posts  at  Kadikoi,  north  of  the  Ak 
(White)  Lorn,  and  at  Solenik,  south  of  it,  between  Torlak  and 
Katzelevo.  This  withdrawal  relieves  the  Russian  Crown 
Prince's  forces  from  a  long-sustained  and  severe  pressure,  and 
may  dispose  him  to  give  up  some  of  his  fresh  reinforcements  for 
the  benefit  of  the  army  before  Plevna.  To  judge  by  movements 
in  the  Dobrudja,  where  Gen.  Zimmermann's  forces  have  recently 
been  active  all  around,  detachments  of  them  appearing  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Silistria,  around  Bazarjik,  and  near  Kavarna, 
an  advance  of  the  Crown  Prince  against  Suleiman,  in  co-opera- 
tion with  Zimmermann  in  the  rear  of  the  Turkish  commander- 
in-chief's  extensive  positions,  seems  to  be  contemplated,  and  an 
attack  by  the  Russians  on  Solenik  on  Monday  is  reported  from 
Shumla.  Bad  weather  and  worse  roads,  however,  appear  to  be 
a  check  on  all  movements  requiring  days'  marching.  The  Rus- 
sian communications  on  both  sides  of  the  Danube  are  described 
as  frightfully  wretched.  To  remedy  the  evil,  according  to  late 
reports,  the  Russians  have  contracted  for  the  construction  of  rail- 
ways which  are  to  connect  Simnitza  with  Giurgevo,  and  Sistova 
with  Plevna  and  Tirnova ;  across  the  Danube,  between  Simnitza 
and  Sistova,  the  cars  are  to  be  carried  on  ferry-boats,  on  the 
American  plan.  Shipka  is  left  out  of  the  scheme.  No  fighting 
is  reported  from  that  quarter,  and  none  from  beyond  the  Vid. 
The  Prince  of  Montenegro  has  dismissed  the  bulk  of  his  troops 
'  to  sow  the  crops,'  and  Milan  of  Servia  continues  to  negotiate. 


110  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 


Nation,  January  3,  1878 : 

The  carrying  off  of  the  military  bridge  at  Braila  by  drifting 
ice  was  followed  by  the  destruction  of  the  bridges  at  JSTicopolis 
and  Petroshani,  and  the  removal  of  those  connecting  Sistova 
with  Simnitza.  All  communication  between  the  Russo-Ru- 
manian  armies  in  Bulgaria,  both  east  and  west  of  the  Turkish 
quadrilateral,  and  their  base  of  supplies  in  Eumania  is  thus 
broken  off  for  a  time,  which  must  give  an  entirely  new  turn  to 
the  operations,  or  completely  suspend  them,  unless  new  and 
speedy  changes  in  the  weather  render  the  restoration  of  a  bridge 
or  two  possible,  or  cause  the  Danube  to  freeze.  The  occurrence 
of  the  interruption  was  months  ago  predicted  as  probable,  and 
yet  it  seems  to  have  taken  the  Russian  commanders  by  surprise, 
since  reports  from  various  quarters  represent  the  camps  of  the 
invading  armies  as  inadequately  supplied  with  food  for  men 
and  beasts,  fuel,  and  other  necessaries,  even  before  the  interrup- 
tion of  communication  has  made  itself  felt.  Numbers  of  Turk- 
ish prisoners  were  left  to  die  of  cold  at  Plevna,  it  being  '  im- 
possible,' as  a  Russian  official  despatch  stated  it, { to  afford  them 
any  aid ' ;  scores  of  prisoners  transported  to  Bucharest,  ex- 
hausted by  want  of  provisions,  were  left  by  their  guards  to 
freeze  to  death  on  the  roadsides,  as  there  were  no  vehicles  to 
carry  them,  '  though  the  absence  of  wagons  was  not  due  to  de- 
liberate cruelty.'  On  the  line  of  the  Lorn  the  Moslem  inhabit' 
ants  retire  to  the  woods  after  burning  their  villages,  the  Turkish 
troops  having  withdrawn  from  their  advanced  positions;  and, 
deprived  of  his  supports,  General  Todleben,  now  the  virtual 
commander  of  the  Tzesarevitch's  army,  will  hardly  be  in  a  con- 
dition to  push  operations  against  either  Rustchuk  or  Rasgrad 
in  the  middle  of  winter. 


The  renewal  of  hostilities  by  the  Servians  and  their  successful 
advance  in  the  direction  of  Sophia  must  thus  be  considered  no 
less  advantageous  to  the  Russians  than  was  the  co-operation  of 
the  Rumanians  in  the  Plevna  campaign.  The  southern  army 
of  Servia,  after  the  capture  of  Ak  Palanka,  occupied  Leskovatz, 


COMMENTS  ON  THE  RUSSO-TTJRKISH  WAR    111 

south  of  Nissa,  and  Kurshumlie,  west  of  the  latter  town ;  soon 
after  reduced  Pirot,  on  the  road  to  Sophia,  taking  a  number  of 
guns  and  a  few  prisoners,  and  began  the  investment  of  Nissa. 
Turkish  troops  sent  to  reinforce  Pirot  arrived  too  late,  and  the 
garrison  of  Nissa  will  probably  have  to  give  up  all  hope  of 
relief  from  without,  since  the  advance  of  a  Russian  force  which 
threatens  Sophia  must  compel  the  withdrawal  of  the  scattered 
Ottoman  detachments  now  in  Turkish  Servia  towards  that  city, 
or  beyond  it,  if  it  is  to  be  abandoned.  The  vanguard  of  the 
Russians  operating  against  Ahmed  Eyub  Pasha  has  succeeded 
in  occupying  some  Balkan  defiles  near  Sophia,  surprising  the 
Turks  by  a  march  over  snow-covered  mountains  and  frozen  foot- 
paths, and  opening  the  road  to  the  city.  The  Turks  are  expected 
to  evacuate  it,  and  to  concentrate  for  the  defense  of  the  passes 
near  Ikhtiman,  leading  from  southwestern  Bulgaria  into  Ru- 
melia.  The  entrance  of  the  Servians  into  Bosnia  is  reported 
from  Belgrade  to  have  been  precluded  by  an  effective  protest  of 
Austria;  but  it  is  only  a  strenuous  resistance  of  Mssa  which 
may  prevent  them  from  invading  the  region  of  Prishtina.  The 
Montenegrins  have  achieved  a  success  between  the  river  Boyana 
and  the  town  of  Dulcigno,  and  recommenced  the  bombardment 
of  Antivari.  On  the  Black  Sea,  too,  the  Turks  have  suffered  a 
loss  in  the  capture  of  a  transport  steamer,  with  seven  hundred 
men  on  board,  by  a  Russian  cruiser  from  Sebastopol.  The  oper- 
ations against  Erzerum  have  again  been  suspended  on  account 
of  heavy  snow.  Mukhtar  Pasha  has  left  that  city,  surrendering 
the  command  to  Ismail  Pasha,  apparently  in  order  to  place  him- 
self at  the  head  of  a  small  force  in  the  field,  which  is  to  defend 
Baiburt  and  operate  on  the  flank  of  the  Russians.  The  Porte 
has  asked  for  peace  through  the  mediation  of  England;  but 
Russia  seems  to  be  inclined  to  treat  only  with  Turkey  directly, 
and,  before  answering  England's  overtures,  calls  out  fresh  re- 
serves, orders  cannon,  and  buys  rifles,  while  Russian  organs 
resent  the  uncalled-for  mediatory  offers  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment by  expressions  of  defiance.  Somewhat  oracular  utterances 
of  the  French  and  Austrian  Cabinets  are  reported,  and  there  is 
a  great  deal  of  '  sounding '  done  all  around,  and  much  telegraph- 
ing about  an  armistice." 


VI 

METTERNICH'S    MEMOIRS   AND    OTHER 
ARTICLES 

Mr.  Heilprin's  review  of  Metternich's  Memoirs,  consisting 
of  three  articles  in  the  Nation,  early  in  1880,  gave  him  an  op- 
portunity of  putting  on  record  his  own  estimate  of  that  states- 
man. Referring  to  the  first  two  volumes  of  the  Memoirs  he 
said: 

"  The  Ahitophel  of  the  Emperor  Francis  and  Mentor  of  the 
Emperor  Ferdinand,  who  guided  the  destinies  of  Austria  from 
the  days  that  followed  the  disaster  at  Wagram  in  July,  1809,  to 
the  day  of  his  own  downfall,  March  13,  1848 ;  the  man  who 
coped  with  Haugwitz,  Stein,  and  Canning,  and  more  than  once 
led  Hardenberg,  Nesselrode,  and  Talleyrand ;  who  dazzled  and 
irritated  Alexander  I.  by  his  sagacity,  subdued  Frederic  Wil- 
liam III.  by  his  consistency,  and  won  the  admiration  of  Napo- 
leon by  the  astute  use  of  his  tongue ;  who,  after  surrendering  hia 
master's  daughter  to  his  French  conqueror,  sealed  the  latter's 
doom  by  joining  his  foes  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Leipzig ;  who 
was  the  leading  genius,  the  great  wire-puller,  of  the  Congress 
of  Vienna,  and  the  dictator  of  reaction  at  Carlsbad,  Troppau, 
Laybach,  and  Verona;  who  guarded  the  equilibrium  and  peace 
of  Europe  against  Russia  under  Nicholas  and  against  France 
under  Louis-Philippe ;  who  supported  the  bloody  absolutism  of 
Ferdinand  of  Naples,  of  Ferdinand  of  Spain,  of  Dom  Miguel, 
and  of  Sultan  Mahmoud ;  who,  always  eager  to  stifle  every  popu- 
lar movement  within  his  reach,  kept  Silvio  Pellico,  Ypsilanti, 
and  Kossuth  prisoners  in  his  fortresses ;  whose  systematic  con- 
servatism and  cunningly  procrastinating  policy  preserved  the 
prestige  of  Austria  abroad,  but  made  her  glide  toward  dissolu- 
tion from  within  —  Prince  Metternich  has  revealed  himself  in 
autobiographical  sketches,  reports,  and  notes,  selected  and  pub- 
lished by  his  son :  who  should  not  hasten  to  read  them  ?  Two 


METTERNICH'S   MEMOIRS  113 

volumes  from  the  pen  of  a  man  who  made  so  much  history,  who 
held  all  the  threads  of  European  diplomacy  in  his  hands  through 
half  a  century,  ought  to  be  a  mine  of  historical  information, 
of  political  wisdom  of  some  sort  or  other,  of  piquant  revelations. 

For  our  part  we  feel  greatly  disappointed.  We  have  read  and 
digested  Metternich's  posthumous  history  of  his  time  down  to 
1815,  with  his  contemporary  communications,  and  our  gain  for 
the  general  knowledge  of  that  extraordinary  period  is  —  com- 
pared to  what  we  were  entitled  to  expect  —  exceedingly  slight. 
The  two  volumes  before  us  hardly  contain  a  fact  that  was  not 
known  a  great  many  years  ago,  hardly  a  reflection  that  is  seri- 
ously worth  pondering,  hardly  a  personal  sketch  that  has  not 
been  better  and  more  faithfully  executed  by  many  a  writer  of 
less  exalted  standing.  These  papers  —  the  reports  especially  — 
are  certainly  worth  reading,  but,  to  those  familiar  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  period,  merely  for  the  sake  of  refreshing  impres- 
sions obtained  from  other  and  more  copious  sources.  Hundreds 
of  striking  events  are  touched  upon,  and  scores  of  historical 
characters  lightly  drawn,  by  Metternich,  and  yet  hardly  an  event 
or  a  character  is  modified  in  its  aspect  from  what  we  long  ago 
learned  it  to  be.  The  writer  himself,  though  he  labors  hard  to 
paint  himself  for  posterity,  and,  besides,  betrays  himself  by 
many  an  unguarded  stroke  of  the  pen,  remains  the  Metternich 
whom  Europe  knew  when  he  guided  Francis  and  covered  Ferdi- 
nand. The  principal  satisfaction  which  these  memoirs  give  us 
is  the  knowledge  that  so  great  an  authority  has  so  little  to 
teach  us.  ... 

Napoleon  is  never  lost  sight  of  in  these  Memoirs,  but  the 
great  historical  page  in  them,  in  the  writer's  estimation,  is  that 
which  describes  Metternich's  meeting  with  Napoleon  at  Dres- 
den, in  June,  1813,  when  the  decision  between  Europe  and  the 
French  Empire  was  to  be  rendered  by  the  oracle  of  Austria. 
This  page  of  history,  were  it  new,  would  suffice  to  make  the 
book  valuable ;  but  Metternich  made  it  known  in  1820,  Thiers 
reproduced  it  mutatis  mutandis  in  his  '  History  of  the  Consulate 
and  the  Empire,'  and  Helfert  gave  it  entire  in  his  '  Marie 
Louise.' 

After  the  destruction  of  'the  grand  army*  on  the  frozen 
plains  of  Russia,  Metternich  had  strenuously  prepared  Austria 


114:  MICHAEL  HEILPRIN 

for  the  role  of  armed  mediator  between  Napoleon  and  northern 
Europe.  Napoleon  had  as  strenuously  armed  anew  for  main- 
taining his  hold  on  Germany  and  recovering  his  military  pres- 
tige. But  his  resources  were  crippled  and  his  armies  were  raw 
levies,  while  the  forces  of  Austria  had  strongly  recuperated  since 
Wagram,  and  were  now  gathering  in  Bohemia  on  the  flank  of 
the  French.  The  respective  positions  were  well  known  to  both 
Napoleon  and  Metternich,  when  they  met  and  conversed  for 
nine  hours  at  the  Marcolini  palace;  but  the  conqueror,  elated 
by  advantages  gained  over  the  Russians  and  Prussians  at  Liitzen 
and  Bautzen,  was  again  inclined  to  deceive  himself,  and  tried 
by  turns  to  cow  and  coax  the  representative  of  his  father-in-law, 
while  Metternich  was  fully  prepared  both  for  his  Jovelike  men- 
aces and  almost  cringing  appeals,  and  cruelly  bent  on  wounding 
and  humbling  him.  He  certainly  achieved  the  one  and  the 
other,  but  it  is  hard  to  say  cui  bono.  If  a  rupture  was  the 
foregone  conclusion,  what  use  was  there  for  him  in  the  prolonga- 
tion of  the  armistice  between  the  French  and  the  allies,  which 
was  the  small  result  of  the  great  scene  ?  If  the  real  aim  was 
the  forcing  of  Napoleon  into  accepting  the  armed  mediation, 
which  would  have  at  once  raised  Austria  to  the  position  of 
arbiter  of  Europe,  a  less  vindictively  arrogant,  less  venomously 
provoking  way  of  treating  was  certainly  demanded.  The  whole 
affair  seems  to  have  been  the  great  pride  of  Metternich,  but  it 
strikes  us  that  it  is  in  reality  the  great  blot  on  his  well-merited 
reputation  for  cold  shrewdness;  that  Thiers  is  right  when  he 
ascribes  the  advantage  gained  to  the  opposite  side ;  that  Napo- 
leon, with  all  his  passion,  feigned  and  real,  succeeded  in  over- 
matching his  adversary,  who  this  time  was  satisfied  with  a  sen- 
timental gain.  Fortune,  it  is  true,  had  already  abandoned 
Napoleon,  and  his  gain  was  illusory.  The  die  was  soon  cast, 
and  Kulm  and  Leipzig  followed. 

Great,  indeed,  must  have  been  Metternich's  proud  excite- 
ment when  he  came  out  of  the  Marcolini  palace,  leaving  Napo- 
leon impotently  raging  behind  him,.  But  this  feeling  is  not 
described  or  alluded  to.  Nor  can  we  discover  any  other  per- 
sonal feeling  of  his  own  expressed  in  Metternich's  autobio- 
graphical narratives.  He  writes  of  Austria's  defeats  and  suc- 
cesses, of  her  deepest  disgrace  or  sudden  recovery,  with  the 


METTERNICH'S   MEMOIRS  115 

coolness  of  a  diplomatic  machine.  He  writes  so  of  himself  — 
in  1829,  in  1844,  in  1853.  His  own  fortunes  were  closely  bound 
up  with  those  of  Austria,  and  he  zealously,  assiduously,  cleverly 
labored  for  the  promotion  of  her  interests,  as  he  understood 
them;  and  in  so  doing  he  seems  to  have  sincerely  believed  he 
was  also  working  for  the  general  good  of  Europe.  His  reports 
reflect  both  his  sincere  zeal  and  great  ability.  The  restoration 
of  the  preponderance  of  Austria  in  the  centre  of  the  continent  ; 
the  establishment  of  a  universal  equilibrium  of  power  through 
the  curbing  of  France  and  Prussia  as  disturbing  elements  ;  the 
subsequent  preservation  of  peace  at  any  cost;  the  guarding  of 
all  states  against  democratic  movements;  the  prevention  of  all 
shocks  from  within  or  without  —  these  were  his  public  aims, 
and  no  sentimentalism  —  we  were  almost  inclined  to  say,  no 
sentiment  —  of  any  kind  obstructed  his  way  towards  his  goal. 
What  were  to  him  the  national  aspirations  of  Germany,  Italy, 
Hungary,  or  Poland  ?  He  knew  no  nations,  no  peoples  ;  only 
states,  or  rather  empires." 


COUNTY 

A  novel  suggestion,  that  was  well  worth  heeding  at  a  time 
when  there  were  still  counties  to  be  named,  was  conveyed  in 
Mr.  Heilprin's  article  on  "  County  Names,"  in  the  Nation  of 
August  5,  1880: 

"Fires  are  raging  in  Franklin  County,  Maine."  In  what 
part  of  the  State  is  Franklin  County?  The  answer  is  easily 
found  in  a  gazetteer,  if  we  possess  one,  or,  after  some  search, 
in  an  atlas,  if  the  children  have  not  taken  it  to  school:  it  is  a 
western  county,  bordering  on  Canada.  "  Franklin  County, 
Missouri,  has  suffered  heavily  by  the  late  floods."  Where  is 
that  county  situated  ?  It  is  an  eastern  county,  bounded  partly 
by  the  Missouri  River.  "  Franklin  County,  Kentucky,  promises 
abundant  crops."  Is  that  situated  west,  or  east?  No,  it  is 
a  northern  county,  intersected  by  the  Kentucky  River.  Frank- 
lin County,  Tennessee,  which  "  is  infested  by  locusts,"  is  a 
southern  county.  Franklin  County,  Ohio,  which  "has  been 
completely  cleared  of  tramps,"  is  in  the  centre  of  the  State; 


116  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

and  Franklin  County,  Iowa,  where  "the  inhabitants  are  pre- 
paring to  celebrate  a  grand  anniversary,"  is  north-central.  Some 
people  all  over  Maine,  Missouri,  Kentucky,  etc.,  when  reading 
a  piece  of  news  concerning  their  own  Franklin  County,  may 
know  where  that  division  of  their  State  is  situated;  outside 
the  respective  State  not  one  in  a  thousand  inhabitants  of  the 
United  States  has  the  faintest  idea  of  the  location  of  the  county 
referred  to  in  the  report.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  Were 
the  State  divisions  named  Washington,  Adams,  Jefferson, 
Madison,  etc.,  and  were  a  certain  order  of  symmetry  preserved 
in  the  geographical  application  of  the  names  of  our  immortals, 
there  would  perhaps  be  a  possibility  of  learning  how  to  locate 
in  each  State  its  Washington  County  or  Franklin  County.  But 
this  is  not  the  case.  Geographically,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
greatest  disorder  prevails,  and  the  number  of  our  immortals 
is  endless.  In  Southern  Illinois,  for  instance,  the  names  are 
thus  placed  in  tiers:  Madison,  Bond,  Fayette,  Effingham,  Jas- 
per, Crawford,  St.  Clair,  Clinton,  Marion,  Clay;  and  in  South 
Indiana  thus:  Daviess,  Martin,  Orange,  Washington,  Clark, 
Gibson,  Pike,  Dubois,  Crawford,  Harrison,  Floyd.  No  amount 
of  reading  will  familiarize  one  with  a  twentieth  part  of  the 
counties  of  the  United  States,  as  to  their  location,  outside  of 
one's  own  State. 

Nor  will  any  amount  of  travelling.  Any  Westerner  who  has 
travelled  repeatedly,  and  by  various  roads,  between  Chicago 
and  the  Atlantic  seaboard  will  remember  a  considerable  number 
of  towns,  rivers,  natural  sites,  and  even  unimportant  stations. 
He  will  never  forget  Toledo,  Cleveland,  or  Buffalo;  Pittsburg, 
Altoona,  or  Harrisburg ;  Trenton,  New  Brunswick,  or  Newark ; 
Syracuse,  Utica,  or  Albany;  the  Juniata,  the  Susquehanna,  or 
the  Delaware;  the  sight  of  the  Alleghanies,  the  Highlands,  or 
the  Catskills.  He  will  remember  places  where  he  noticed  a 
picturesque  hill  or  cascade,  a  beautiful  sunrise  or  sunset,  or 
particular  signs  of  prosperity;  places  where  he  drank  abomi- 
nable coffee  after  a  sleepless  night,  where  he  was  cheated  by  the 
waiter,  or  stopped  for  hours  on  account  of  an  accident.  His 
recollections  will  be  checkered  and  variously  instructive.  But 
he  may  in  ten  lengthy  journeys  never  have  learned  the  name 
of  a  single  county.  No  sign,  no  mark  of  a  boundary,  no  call 


COUNTY   NAMES  117 

of  a  conductor  ever  indicated  such  a  name.  He  never  learned 
that  it  was  on  the  border  of  Cambria  and  Blair  Counties  that 
he  crossed  the  ridges  of  the  Alleghanies;  that  it  was  the  hills 
of  Mifflin  County  which  charmed  him  so  much  on  the  banks 
of  the  Juniata;  that  it  was  in  Dauphin  that  the  train  was  de- 
layed on  the  Susquehanna ;  that  the  Delaware,  where  he  crossed 
it,  flowed  between  Bucks  and  Mercer;  that  the  beautiful  sur- 
roundings of  West  Point  formed  a  part  of  Orange ;  or  that  the 
peaks  of  the  Catskills  towered  above  each  other  in  Greene. 
Nor  does  he,  while  reading  of  things  and  events  in  Cambria, 
Blair,  Mifflin,  Dauphin,  and  so  forth,  suspect  that  he  has 
traversed  or  skirted  those  counties ;  and  he  thus  never  connects 
the  subjects  read  about  with  what  he  has  seen  with  his  own 
eyes.  Only  a  few  names  form  exceptions:  Juniata  County  he 
will  naturally  connect  with  the  river  of  the  same  name,  and 
Albany  County  with  the  capital  of  New  York.  In  the  same 
way  we  involuntarily  connect,  in  reading,  Appomattox  County 
with  Appomattox  Court-House,  where  Lee  surrendered  to  Grant, 
and  Spottsylvania  County  with  Spottsylvania  Court-House, 
where  the  armies  of  those  generals  so  desperately  grappled  with 
each  other  a  year  earlier ;  and  we  locate  in  our  mind  —  fol- 
lowing our  historical  associations  —  the  former  county  some- 
where beyond  Kichmond,  and  the  latter  beyond  the  Rappahan- 
nock.  But  how  many  of  us  have  learned  to  associate  Henrico 
County  with  the  siege  of  Richmond,  or  Dinwiddie  County  with 
the  siege  of  Petersburg  ? 

The  exceptions  stated  above  —  Juniata,  Albany  —  show  two 
rational  ways  of  naming  territorial  divisions,  and,  in  fact,  we 
doubt  whether  there  are  any  other.  The  French  adopted  the 
one  when,  shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  they 
replaced  the  historical  divisions  of  their  country  —  Burgundy, 
Languedoc,  Touraine,  Berry,  etc.,  which  had  become  obsolete 
or  inadequate  —  by  new  ones,  known  as  departments.  These 
they  named  after  their  main  geographical  features,  in  a  man- 
ner equally  systematic  and  instructive.  Some  received  their 
names  from  mountains :  Ardennes,  Vosges,  Puy-de-D6me,  Jura, 
Hautes-Pyrenees,  Basses-Pyrenees,  etc. ;  most  others  —  like  our 
Juniata  County  —  from  rivers:  Somme,  Seine,  Oise,  Seine- 
et-Oise,  Marne,  Rhone,  Loire,  Loire-Inferieure,  Gironde,  Haute- 


118  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Garonne,  Bouches-du-Rhone,  etc.  Had  the  naming-committee 
followed  our  patriotic  plan,  their  departmental  nomenclature 
would  probably  have  consisted  of  such  names  as  Montaigne, 
Corneille,  Racine,  Moliere,  Pascal,  Voltaire,  and  possibly  Conde 
and  Turenne,  or  even  Mirabeau  and  Lafayette  —  these  two  to 
be  changed  by  subsequent  revolutions  into  Guillotin  and  Marat, 
Lsetitia  and  Josephine,  Saint-Louis  and  Jeanne  d'Arc,  and, 
after  new  changes,  into  Victor-Noir  and  Rochefort,  and  so  forth. 
And  had  our  State-dividers,  from  Kentucky  downward,  fol- 
lowed the  example  of  the  French,  Franklin  County,  Maine, 
would  be  called  Mount  Blue;  Franklin  County,  Missouri, 
Lower  Maramec;  Franklin  County,  Kentucky,  Kentucky-and- 
Elkhorn;  Franklin  County,  Tennessee,  Upper  Elk;  Franklin 
County,  Ohio,  Scioto;  and  Franklin  County,  Iowa,  lowa-and- 
Otter.  On  this  plan  the  names  of  the  northeastern  divisions  of 
the  State  of  New  York  would  be  —  instead  of  Clinton,  Essex, 
Warren,  Franklin,  Hamilton  —  Saranac,  Adirondack,  Upper 
Hudson,  Mount  Seward,  Long  Lake.  There  would  be  mean- 
ing, instruction,  and  pleasant  variety  in  the  names  —  all  of 
which  we  miss  in  our  twenty-eight  (or  more)  Washingtons, 
twenty-three  Jeffersons,  twenty-two  Franklins,  etc.  The  nam- 
ing, however,  would  have  required  geographical  knowledge,  dis- 
crimination, and  an  inclination  to  agree  —  more  of  all  these 
qualifications  than  our  State  committees  generally  give  evi- 
dence of. 

Easier  of  execution  is  the  other  rational  way  of  naming 
territorial  divisions  —  the  way  alluded  to  above  in  the  mention 
of  Albany  County.  The  practice  of  calling  a  division  after 
its  chief  town  prevails,  with  some  exceptions  —  of  which  France 
is  the  principal  —  all  over  Europe.  Of  course  we  do  not  refer 
to  the  historical  main  divisions,  nearly  corresponding  to  our 
States,  such  as  Aragon,  Catalonia,  Brabant,  Flanders,  Branden- 
burg, Silesia,  Lombardy,  Venetia,  Tyrol,  Styria,  Croatia,  Tran- 
sylvania, Lithuania,  South-Russia,  etc.  The  administrative 
divisions  of  Spain,  Italy,  Prussia,  and  Russia,  for  instance  — 
variously  designated  as  provinces,  administrative  districts,  and 
governments  —  are  named  after  their  capitals,  thus :  Madrid, 
Toledo,  Guadalajara,  Cuenca;  Alessandria,  Coni,  Novara, 
Turin;  Konigsberg,  Gumbinnen,  Dantzic,  Marienwerder ;  St. 


COUNTY   NAMES  119 

Petersburg,  Novgorod,  Tver,  Moscow.  Only  a  few  of  the  Rus- 
sian governments,  such  as  happen  to  coincide  with  historical 
divisions  —  like  Bessarabia,  Courland,  and  Esthonia  —  form 
exceptions.  Nor  are  the  exceptions  numerous  in  Scotland  or 
Ireland,  while  in  England  a  mixed  nomenclature  prevails  — 
the  counties  of  the  centre  bearing  mostly  names  of  towns,  like 
Lincoln,  Nottingham,  Derby,  Stafford,  Leicester,  Warwick, 
Worcester;  and  those  of  the  southeast,  southwest,  and  extreme 
north  historical  names,  like  Essex,  Kent,  Sussex,  Devon,  Corn- 
wall, Northumberland,  Cumberland.  The  general  European 
plan  has  been  in  the  main  adopted  by  California,  and  the  sea- 
farer who  sails  along  her  shores  from  Oregon  to  the  border  of 
Mexico,  and  is  shown  the  coast  towns  of  Klamath,  Humboldt, 
Mendocino,  San  Francisco,  Santa  Cruz,  Monterey,  San  Luis 
Obispo,  Santa  Barbara,  and  San  Diego,  will  also  have  learned 
where  the  counties  of  the  same  names  are  situated.  These 
sonorous  names,  it  is  true,  immortalize  none  of  our  Revolu- 
tionary or  post-Revolutionary  heroes;  but  California,  if  led 
by  hero-worship,  might  also  have  inscribed  on  her  soil  the  name 
of  an  earlier  Kalloch,  De  Young,  or  Kearney.  Our  youngest 
State,  Colorado,  has  in  its  counties  a  mixture,  without  system, 
of  all  kinds  of  words,  Indian,  Spanish,  and  English  —  from 
Arapahoe,  through  La  Plata  and  Las  Animas,  to  Summit  and 
Weld.  May  the  States  to  be  admitted  be  wiser  in  their  county 
nomenclatures,  and  while  hallowing  no  more  ground  with 
patristic  appellations,  save  us  also  from  such  names  of  dubious 
sound  as  are  Indiana's  Dubois  and  Floyd!  It  is  too  much  to 
hope  that  there  is  any  possibility  of  transforming  the  thousands 
of  names  we  have  —  more  meaningless  than  would  be  A,  B,  C, 
or  X,  Y,  Z  —  into  others  indicative  of  natural  features  or 
administrative  connections,  and  thus  easily  learned  and  better 
remembered." 


VII 

CONTRIBUTIONS   TO  BOTH  THE  NATION  AND 
THE   EVENING   POST 

After  the  amalgamation  of  the  Nation  with  the  Evening 
Post,  in  1881,  Mr.  Heilprin's  opportunities  of  writing  on 
political  topics  widened.  Some  of  his  editorials  on  foreign 
affairs  appeared  in  the  latter  paper  only,  but  the  majority 
were  published  in  both  journals.  He  wrote,  to  mention  only 
a  few,  on  "  The  First  Year  of  Alexander  III.,"  "  The  Oldest 
of  Emperors"  (William  I.),  on  Herzegovina,  'on  Marshal 
Serrano's  Coup  in  1882,  on  "  The  State  of  Affairs  in  Eussia  " 
(1883),  "Nationality  Strifes  in  Austria-Hungary"  (1883), 
"  The  Crisis  in  Norway  "  (1883),  "  Croatia  versus  Hungary  " 
(1883),  "The  Vienna  Anniversary"  (1883),  "Bismarck's 
Coalition"  (1883),  "Bismarck  and  the  Reichstag"  (1884), 
"  The  Succession  in  Holland  and  Luxemburg  "  (1884),  "  Span- 
ish Affairs"  (1884),  "France  as  a  Colonizer"  (1885),  "The 
Pan-Bulgarian  Revolution"  (1885),  "War  in  the  Balkans" 
(1885),  "  Parliamentary  Anarchy  in  Germany  "  (1886),  "  The 
Troubles  in  Galicia"  (1886),  "The  Czar  and  His  People" 
(1886),  "Rumania  in  the  Eastern  Conflict"  (1886),  and 
"Does  Germany  Anticipate  War?"  (1886).  In  addition  to 
these  editorial  contributions,  there  were  published  in  the  Post 
and  Nation  during  this  period,  and  down  to  the  day  of  his  death, 
many  reviews  from  Mr.  Heilprin's  indefatigable  pen. 

From  the  mass  of  his  critical  articles  I  can  select  only  a 
few.  Considerations  of  space  prevent  me  from  including  some 
of  the  most  important,  such  as  the  three  on  "  The  Revised  Old 
Testament,"  which  appeared  in  1885. 

RUSSIA  AND   THE   RUSSIANS.1 

I 

There  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  in  saying  that  the  number  of 
books  on  Russia  is  increasing  from  day  to  day,  but  good  works 

1  L'Empire  des  Tsars  et  les  Russes.  Par  Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu.  Tome  i. 
Le  pays  et  les  habitants.  Paris:  Librairie  Hachotte  et  Cie. 


LEKOY-BEAULIEU'S    "KUSSIA"  121 

on  that  empire  are  yet  as  rare  as,  say,  sound  and  impartial 
works  on  the  United  States.  Mackenzie  Wallace's  "  Russia," 
a  production  of  incomparably  lighter  calibre  than  Tocqueville's 
"  Democracy  in  America,"  is  still  equally  exceptional.  Leroy- 
Beaulieu's  "  L'Empire  des  Tsars  "  is  evidently  destined  to  be- 
come for  a  time  the  book  on  the  subject.  Among  studies  of 
countries  by  foreigners  it  cannot  fail  to  take  place  in  the  very 
foremost  rank,  owing  to  unbiassed  observation  on  the  spot, 
diligent  research  among  the  best  authorities  in  the  national 
literature  and  press,  a  vast  corrective  correspondence  with  well- 
informed  natives,  and  a  minute  sifting  of  results  by  a  mind 
conscientiously  critical.  It  is  too  extensive,  and  presupposes 
too  much  preliminary  knowledge  on  the  part  of  its  public,  to 
become  as  popular  as  Wallace's  pleasing  composition,  and  it 
nowhere  equals  that  original  play  of  genius  with  problems  ap- 
parently novel  which  charms  us  in  Tocqueville's  "  Democracy  " ; 
but  it  surpasses  the  latter  in  breadth,  and  the  former  both  in 
breadth  and  depth,  and,  if  less  attractive  than  either,  it  not 
only  enlightens  the  reader  by  its  slow  but  lucid  demonstrations, 
but  delights  him  by  its  felicitous  illustrations  and  a  diction 
worthy  of  the  best  periods  of  French  literature.  In  a  word,  it 
is  a  great  work.  It  disarms  the  reviewer's  critical  propensity, 
and  allows  him  only  to  follow  the  author  closely  in  some  of  his 
salient  generalizations  and  summings-up.  It  is  to  consist  of 
three,  or  possibly  four,  large  volumes,  but  only  the  first  is  as 
yet  before  us. 

The  author  considers  the  shape  and  extent  of  European 
Russia,  and  asks  himself:  Does  it  really  form  a  part  of 
Europe,  differing  from  the  rest  only  in  proportions,  in  the 
scale  of  dimensions  ?  or  does  its  prodigious  widening  fully  dis- 
tinguish and  separate  it  from  Occidental  Europe  ?  Are  not  the 
conditions  of  civilization  modified  by  the  vastness  of  the  area  ? 
Are  Russia's  geographical  structure,  its  soil  and  climate,  Euro- 
pean? Entire  Europe  forms  a  peninsular  triangle,  the  broad 
base  of  which  rests  completely  on  Asia  and  is  bodily  joined  to 
it.  Thus  joined  to  Asia,  Russia  preserves  that  continent's  con- 
figuration. Europe  proper  is  distinguished  from  all  other  por- 
tions of  the  globe  by  two  main  traits,  which  have  rendered  it 
the  natural  seat  of  civilization:  it  is  cut  into  parts  by  seas, 


122  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

peninsular,  articulated  —  to  speak  with  Humboldt  —  and  it 
has,  for  its  latitude,  a  surpassingly  temperate  climate.  Eussia, 
on  the  contrary,  is  one  of  the  most  compact,  the  most  continental, 
countries  of  the  globe.  She  has  none  of  Europe's  maritime 
climate ;  hers  is  continental  —  extremely  cold  in  winter  and 
excessively  hot  in  summer,  and  almost  untempered  by  seasons 
of  transition.  The  Gulf  Stream  does  not  reach  her;  the  seas 
lave  only  her  flanks,  so  remote  from  each  other ;  arctic  ice  and 
winds  hold  her  in  bondage  through  most  of  the  year ;  the  flat- 
ness of  the  soil  keeps  her  open  to  blasts  both  from  the  Polar 
circle  and  the  parched  deserts  of  Central  Asia ;  she  has  no  shel- 
tering mountain  ranges  —  the  broken  Ural  hardly  forms  an  ex- 
ception—  no  sheltered  valleys.  Russia  is  horizontal  and  uni- 
form not  only  geographically,  but  also  geologically ;  the  flatness 
of  the  surface  is  the  result  of  the  regular  parallelism  of  the 
subterranean  strata.  Without  seas  and  without  mountains,  she 
sadly  lacks  humidity,  especially  in  her  eastern  parts.  All  these 
conditions  place  her  in  complete  physical  opposition  to  Occi- 
dental Europe;  or,  rather,  naturally  considered,  Europe,  rest- 
ing on  Russia  as  an  Asiatic  base,  begins  only  where  the  continent 
becomes  contracted  by  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Baltic. 

Is  Russia,  therefore,  Asiatic?  Is  she  to  be  classed  among 
the  sleeping  or  stationary  nations  of  the  remote  East?  By  no 
means.  She  is  no  more  Asiatic  than  European.  By  the  en- 
semble of  her  natural  conditions  she  differs  from  historic  Asia 
just  as  much  as  from  Europe  proper.  It  was  not  an  accident 
which  prevented  her  from  developing  an  Asian  civilization.  On 
both  sides  of  the  Ural,  Russia  forms  a  particular  region,  with 
special  physical  features,  embracing  all  the  northern  plains  of 
the  old  continent,  all  its  colossal  depression  —  the  Lower  Europe 
and  Lower  Asia  of  Humboldt.  Rather  than  to  either  Occi- 
dental Europe  or  old  Asia,  she  is  to  be  compared  to  North 
America,  which  she  adjoins  in  Siberia.  Russia  is  one  of  those 
terrestrial  regions  which  boundless  extent  and  asperity  of 
climate  disqualify  from  becoming  cradles  of  civilization.  In- 
capable of  nourishing  civilization  in  its  first  days,  she  is  ad- 
mirably adapted  to  receive  it  and  raise  it.  Like  North  America, 
she  offers  to  Europe,  outside  of  her  extreme  belts,  an  immense 
field  for  the  development  of  human  activity  on  a  vaster  scale. 


LEROY-BEAULIEU'S    "KUSSIA"  123 

Her  climate  is  inclement,  her  forests  are  meagre,  her  steppes 
treeless;  but  what  man  needs  is  less  richness  of  the  soil  than 
the  facility  of  subduing  and  using  it.  Russia's  fauna  is  poor, 
her  flora  is  poor ;  there  is  no  variety,  no  display  of  power,  noth- 
ing grand  —  except  the  vastness  of  the  land ;  but  neither  has 
her  living  nature,  in  its  debility  —  in  its  lack  of  fecundity  and 
robustness  —  any  strength  to  oppose  to  man.  The  soil  is  tame 
and  docile.  Unlike  Brazil  or  Hindostan,  where  man  becomes 
the  petty  slave  of  a  luxuriant,  glowing,  wondrous,  and  uncon- 
querable nature,  the  vast  territory  of  Russia  is  made  for  free 
labor;  it  needs  no  African  negro,  no  Chinese  cooly.  The  Rus- 
sian soil  does  not  use  up  its  cultivator;  it  does  not  threaten 
his  race  with  degeneracy ;  it  bears  no  Creoles. 

The  Russian  people,  the  muzhik,  is  the  main  colonizer,  almost 
the  sole  colonizer,  of  the  Russian  lands.  This  fact,  apparently 
so  simple,  hides  difficulties  and  inferiorities  of  all  kinds.  In- 
stead of  the  most  enterprising  men  of  the  most  advanced  coun- 
tries of  Europe,  such  as  are  colonizing  the  United  States  and 
Australia,  we  find  here  a  people  kept  back  by  nature  and  his- 
tory —  a  people  of  peasants,  who  yesterday  were  serfs ;  instead 
of  freedom,  independence,  and  individual  sovereignty,  we  see 
an  autocratic  government,  a  pestering  administration,  communal 
bonds  tying  man  to  man  and  the  tiller  to  the  ground.  Russia's 
colonizing  expansion  is  crippled  by  standing  armies,  a  long  mili- 
tary service,  a  narrow  centralization,  an  omnipotent  bureau- 
cracy. These  galling  drawbacks  have  repelled  European  immi- 
gration, and  will  continue  to  repel  it.  Russia  will  in  vain  offer 
to  the  immigrant  admirable  lands  waiting  for  the  plough  —  her 
very  next  neighbors  of  Scandinavia  prefer  to  wander  beyond 
the  ocean  to  the  northwest  of  the  United  States. 

And  Russia  is  a  country  in  process  of  colonization.  Th&ugh 
old,  she  is  still  forming.  She  is  at  the  same  time  an  empire 
of  a  thousand  years  and  a  colony  of  a  century  or  two.  She 
may  be  likened  to  the  United  States  and  also  to  Turkey.  She 
is  a  country  both  new  and  old;  a  semi-Asiatic  monarchy  and 
young  European  colony;  a  Janus  with  one  face  old  and  worn 
out  and  the  other  adolescent,  almost  infantile.  This  duality 
is  the  source  of  striking  contrasts  whithersoever  we  turn  in 
Russia:  contrasts  in  private  life,  in  character,  in  the  state; 


124  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

contrasts  so  frequent  that  they  form  the  rule,  a  law  of  contra- 
dictions. Everything  has  contributed  to  produce  them :  a  posi- 
tion between  Asia  and  Europe  —  so  to  say,  astride  of  both ;  a 
blending  of  races  —  Slavic,  Finnic,  Tartaric  —  far  from  com- 
plete; a  historical  past  formed  by  the  contests  of  two  worlds, 
by  violently  alternating  phases.  Erom  these  contrasts  spring 
the  different  judgments  passed  on  Kussia,  the  falsity  of  which 
lies  very  often  in  exhibiting  only  one  side.  The  law  of  contra- 
dictions is  further  discoverable  in  society,  whose  classes,  high 
and  low,  are  divided  by  a  wide  chasm;  in  the  political  field, 
where  liberalism  is  often  attempted,  but  generally  weighted 
down  by  inveterate  inertia ;  even  in  the  individual,  in  his  ideas, 
sentiments,  and  manners.  The  contrast  is  both  in  form  and 
in  essence,  in  the  single  man  as  well  as  in  the  nation.  The 
state,  a  military  monarchy  and  young  colony  at  the  same  time, 
has  the  weakness  of  either,  and  the  full  force  of  neither.  With 
deserts  to  people  and  clear,  Russia  is  doomed  by  her  contact 
with  Europe  to  bear  military  and  financial  burdens  like  the 
oldest  and  most  civilized  of  nations.  Her  tasks  are  those  of  both 
Europe  and  America,  while  her  instruments  are  inferior  to 
those  of  either.  She  resembles  an  actor  forced  to  play  before 
having  learned  his  part  —  a  man  trying  to  acquire  his  first 
education  amid  the  toils  and  struggles  of  mature  age. 

The  least  Slavic  of  all  the  Slavs,  the  Great-Russian,  has  been 
the  Slavic  colonizer  par  excellence.  Treated  by  his  enemies 
as  a  Turanian,  a  Mongolian,  an  Asiatic,  his  national  origins 
are  found  in  the  West:  on  the  Dnieper,  between  the  Dnieper 
and  the  Diina,  at  Novgorod.  His  march  has  been  from  Europe 
to  Asia;  from  White  Russia  to  beyond  the  Ural,  the  Caspian, 
and  the  Caucasus.  His  destinies  are  imaged  in  the  great  river, 
the  course  of  which  he  has  followed  from  its  source  to  its  delta : 
like  the  Volga,  he  has  run  his  course  from  Europe  to  Asia. 
When,  under  Ivan  III.  and  Ivan  IV.,  and  later  under  Peter 
the  Great,  he  turned  as  a  foe  toward  the  Baltic  and  the  West, 
he  only  retraced  his  steps  toward  his  European  base.  His  his- 
tory is  the  history  of  a  struggle  with  Asia.  The  centuries  of 
Tartar  domination  never  made  him  forget  his  European 
origin.  Victorious  over  Asia,  he  yet,  during  his  advance 
from  the  Dnieper  to  the  Ural,  became  both  morally  and 


LEEOY-BEAULIEU'S    "RUSSIA"  125 

physically  changed  by  his  contact  with  the  populations  sub- 
dued and  absorbed.  There  is  in  the  Russian  more  heaviness, 
both  of  body  and  mind,  than  in  Slavs  of  less  mixed  blood; 
Aryan  beauty  is  there  more  rare.  The  Great-Russian  often 
betrays  Finnic  descent  by  his  flat  face,  small  eyes,  and  promi- 
nent cheek-bones.  To  Finnic  influence  and  Tartar  oppression 
he  owes  greater  harshness,  but  also  greater  robustness,  than 
marks  other  Slavs.  He  has  less  independence  and  individuality ; 
he  has  more  patience  and  consistency.  He  has  not  that  mobility 
which  has  been  the  bane  of  the  Pole.  The  extreme  ductility 
of  the  Slav  has  in  him  been  tempered  by  foreign,  chiefly  Finnic, 
alloy ;  the  loss  of  purity  is  compensated  for  by  a  gain  in  solidity. 
The  fusion  of  race,  as  elsewhere,  has  been  productive  of  vigor 
at  the  expense  of  refinement.  But  Finnic  and  Tartar  blood 
has  not  transformed  the  Great-Russians  into  Finns  or  Tartars. 
They  are  not  Aryans  and  Slavs  merely  by  language  and  his- 
torical development.  They  are  much  more  properly  Slavs  than 
the  French  or  Spaniards  are  Latins.  A  considerable  portion 
of  their  blood  is  Caucasian,  Slavic.  The  proportion  can  hardly 
be  determined ;  it  varies  according  to  region  and  class.  In 
the  bulk  of  the  nation  Slavic  blood  probably  preponderates. 


II 

Nature  in  Russia  presents  two  opposite  aspects  —  vastness 
and  vacuity.  Her  enormous  territories  are  devoid  of  variety 
of  form  and  variety  of  color.  Animate  as  well  as  inanimate 
nature  lacks  grandeur  and  power.  The  picturesque  is  almost 
imperceptible.  Travel  through  the  Russian  plains  produces  a 
feeling  of  satiety  almost  like  a  sea-voyage.  You  open  your  eyes 
after  a  night's  sleep  in  a  steamer  or  a  railway-train,  and  perceive 
no  change  of  place.  The  grandeur  of  the  rivers  diminishes  their 
beauty:  the  finest  banks  are  lowered  into  insignificance  by  dis- 
tance. Everywhere  you  see  the  same  animals,  the  same  plants, 
the  same  trees.  The  cultivated  fields  vie  in  monotony  with  the 
forest  and  the  steppe.  There  are  no  hamlets,  no  isolated  farms. 
The  Russian  seems  to  dread  solitude  in  the  boundless  space 
which  surrounds  him.  The  community  of  property  which  pre- 
vails among  the  peasants  adds  to  the  defect  of  nature.  Here 


126  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

none  of  those  capriciously  multiform  hedges  are  seen  which  em- 
bellish the  rural  landscapes  of  England  or  Normandy ;  the  land 
is  level,  featureless,  sombre.  The  Russian's  fondness  for  prop- 
erty in  common  and  association  in  labor  is  probably  owing  less 
to  race  instinct  than  to  the  immensity  of  space,  under  a  rigorous 
climate,  in  which  man  in  isolation  feels  himself  powerless  and 
as  if  lost. 

From  the  same  sources  springs  an  inclination  in  the  opposite 
direction :  the  taste  for  adventure,  travel,  and  vagabondage  — 
an  intense  migratory  propensity.  It  is  easy  to  explain  the  peas- 
ant's lack  of  fondness  for  agriculture,  of  attachment  to  the  un- 
grateful and  almost  mournful  soil  of  old  Muscovy;  but  this 
disposition  has  in  great  part  been  nurtured  by  the  institutions, 
by  serfdom  and  the  modes  of  possession.  The  northern  nations 
have  in  general  less  attachment  to  the  soil  than  the  nations  of 
the  south,  and  rural  Russia  is,  besides  —  from  the  hut  of  the 
peasant  to  the  church  and  seigneurial  manor  —  a  country  of 
pine  habitations,  "  a  Europe  of  timber,"  again  and  again  visited 
by  the  destructive  and  dispersive  scourge  of  conflagration. 
Every  dwelling  becomes  sooner  or  later  a  prey  to  fire:  why 
should  one  cling  to  so  fragile  an  abode  ?  why  embellish  it  so  as 
to  love  it?  Many  a  Russian  leaves  his  village  for  parts  un- 
known as  soon  as  "  the  red  cock  "  has  crowed  on  his  roof. 

To  this  fondness  for  going  ahead  in  a  venturesome  way  cor- 
responds a  moral  tendency  —  the  readiness  of  the  Russian  mind 
to  plunge  into  the  most  reckless  speculations;  a  disregard  of 
obstacles  which  fears  no  temerity,  philosophical,  social,  or  re- 
ligious; an  astonishing  indulgence  for  temerity  in  every  field. 
The  Russian's  thought,  like  his  rural  horizon,  knows  no  bounds 
—  it  loves  the  unlimited;  it  pushes  right  ahead  toward  the 
extreme,  at  the  risk  of  reaching  the  absurd.  And  side  by  side 
with  this  propensity  we  discover  an  almost  general  lack  of  in- 
dividuality, of  originality,  of  creative  power.  A  backward 
civilization  is  partly  responsible  for  this  defect,  but  its  main 
source  is  the  want  of  variety  and  power  in  the  surrounding 
nature.  To  the  poverty  of  the  latter  is  owing  in  great  part  the 
sterility  of  Russian  thought.  This  country  offers  no  images  to 
the  poet,  no  color  to  the  painter,  no  freshness  to  impressions  or 
ideas.  Hence  the  vigorlessness  and  lifelessness  of  the  ancient 


LEROY-BEAULIEU'S  "KUSSIA"  127 

mythology  of  the  Russian  Slavs,  as  compared  with  the  myths 
of  the  Greeks  or  the  Scandinavians.  It  was  amid  the  grand 
scenery  of  the  Caucasus,  at  the  very  extremity  of  European 
Russia  —  whither  a  suspicious  police  has  exiled  so  many  literary 
talents  —  that  Pushkin  and  Lennontoff  found  poetical  inspira- 
tion and  a  lofty  romanticism. 

What  there  is  of  diversity,  picturesqueness,  and  beauty  in 
rural  Russia  is  derived  more  from  time  than  from  space,  from 
the  alternation  of  seasons  rather  than  from  scenery.  In  the 
south,  especially  in  tropical  lands,  the  earth  glows  with  tints, 
but  the  seasons  are  hardly  distinguishable.  In  a  northern  con- 
tinental country  like  Great  Russia  the  seasons  are  strikingly 
unlike  each  other ;  they  robe  the  earth  in  markedly  new  colors. 
The  thus  varying  aspects  of  nature  restore  to  the  Russian  the 
variety  of  impressions  and  sentiments  which  the  soil  refuses 
him.  Without  leaving  his  village,  he  sees  alternations  of  cli- 
mate and  aspect  such  as  others  witness  in  passing  and  repassing 
through  thirty  degrees  of  latitude  between  the  pole  and  the 
equator.  These  alternations  act  upon  character  and  tempera- 
ment, upon  the  imagination  and  the  mind.  In  Russia  every 
season  has  its  labors,  its  holidays,  its  pleasures,  different  songs, 
and  even  different  dances.  To  the  violent  alternations  of  the 
seasons,  which  temper  him  for  all  climates,  the  Russian  owes  a 
peculiar  flexibility  and  elasticity  of  organs  —  a  facility  of  pass- 
ing from  one  sentiment  or  idea  to  another.  To  the  same  cause 
may  be  attributed  much  that  in  the  Russian  appears  unbridled, 
eccentric,  rough.  If  he  has  little  intellectual  originality  and  a 
poorly-developed  inventive  faculty,  he  is  very  often  original  in 
his  tastes,  manners,  and  expressions.  He  sometimes  evinces  a 
lizarrerie  closely  bordering  on  insanity.  Ivan  the  Terrible, 
Peter  the  Great,  and  Paul  are  examples  of  it  among  his  sov- 
ereigns. Like  his  climate,  he  easily  goes  from  one  extreme  to 
the  other :  his  changes  of  mood,  thought,  or  feeling  are  striking ; 
the  oscillations  of  his  intellect  and  heart  embrace  a  wide  range. 
He  rapidly  passes  from  activity  to  torpor,  from  tenderness  to 
rage,  from  joviality  to  moroseness,  from  enthusiasm  to  apathy, 
from  submission  and  resignation  to  revolt;  he  displays  in  rapid 
turns  all  the  variations  of  heat  and  cold,  calm  and  tempest.  In 
the  individual,  in  society,  in  the  Government,  this  propensity 


128  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

to  move  and  act  by  fits  and  starts  is  equally  perceptible.  Periods 
of  inertia,  languor,  and  despondency  are  abruptly  succeeded  by 
periods  of  ardor,  energy,  and  confidence.  Doubt  and  conviction, 
indifference  and  fanaticism,  strangely  relieve  and  almost  blend 
with  each  other. 

The  climate,  by  its  rigor  and  exigencies,  renders  the  Russian 
inclined  to  realism,  to  practical  common  sense;  the  grandeur, 
monotony,  and  poverty  of  his  boundless  plain  create  in  him  a 
disposition  to  mysticism  and  sadness.  This  conflict  or  alliance 
of  tendencies  is  illustrated  by  various  striking  phenomena  — 
among  them  by  Nihilism.  Like  most  theories  which  move  the 
Russian  mind,  Nihilism  is  an  importation  from  the  West.  From 
Europe,  chiefly  from  the  philosophical  nurseries  of  Germany, 
came  the  first  seeds  of  that  spirit  of  negation  and  revolt  which 
we  see  thrive  so  amazingly  in  the  shade  of  absolute  autocracy. 
The  radical  epigoni  of  Kant  and  Hegel  were  the  masters  of 
Hertzen  and  Bakunin.  French  revolutionists  and  socialists  have 
done  their  part  in  developing  Nihilism,  which  is  but  the  Russian 
form  of  the  destructive  spirit  of  the  age.  That  this  general 
disease  has  become  endemic  in  the  lowlands  of  the  Neva  and 
"Volga ;  that  it  is  there  more  virulent,  and  accompanied  by  spe- 
cial symptoms,  is  owing  to  the  mental  constitution  and  diet  of 
the  people.  Nihilism  is  not  a  growth  of  a  decade;  it  existed 
many  years  ago,  and  it  has  assumed  various  shapes.  There  is 
an  active  and  violent  Nihilism,  which  conspires  and  assassi- 
nates ;  an  older  variety  —  theoretic,  vague,  and  unconscious  — 
permeates  the  schools  and  society,  penetrating  into  the  very 
salons  and  chanceries.  Nihilism  breathed  everywhere,  was  the 
fashion,  was  the  creed  of  students  and  of  all  short-haired  school- 
maidens,  long  before  the  murderous  attempts  and  deeds  of  1878, 
1879,  and  1880  (and,  let  us  add,  the  catastrophe  of  1881)  un- 
veiled it  to  the  world  in  all  its  destructive  power. 

But  though  an  offspring  of  Occidental  metaphysical  specula- 
tion, Nihilism  is  not  a  system,  like  Schopenhauer's  pessimism  or 
Comte's  positivism,  or  a  new  form  of  ancient  scepticism  or  nat- 
uralism. As  a  philosophical  theory,  it  is  an  unscientific,  coarse 
materialism;  as  a  political  doctrine,  it  is  a  socialistic  radical- 
ism, bent  less  on  improving  the  moral  and  material  condition 
of  the  masses  than  on  annihilating  the  social  and  political  order 


LEROY-BEAULIEU'S    "RUSSIA"  129 

now  existing.  Nihilism  constitutes  no  party.  Its  name,  by 
which  we  generally  designate  the  doctrines  of  Russian  revolu- 
tionists of  all  shades  —  federalists,  terrorists,  anarchists,  com- 
munists, etc.  —  is  rejected  by  most  of  them.  But  Russian  radi- 
calism deserves  it  both  by  its  scientific  nullity  and  its  destruc- 
tively negative  attitude  toward  civilization  —  toward  Christian 
and  classical  culture,  as  developed  by  the  Germano-Latin  races. 
The  Russian,  half  a  century  ago,  adored  that  culture  with  the 
ardor  of  a  neophyte ;  he  swore  by  the  liberal  principles  it  had 
proclaimed  since  1789 ;  he  has  discovered  its  shallowness  and 
hollowness,  and,  with  the  mobility  which  carries  him  from  one 
extreme  to  the  other,  with  the  bitterness  of  a  cruelly  deceived 
and  undeceived  believer,  he  blasphemes  the  object  of  his  former 
worship ;  he  vows  to  destroy  the  proud  temple  erected  to  those 
modern  idols  which,  under  the  usurped  names  of  liberty,  equal- 
ity, and  fraternity,  give  sanction  to  error,  discord,  and  the 
sordid  bondage  of  poverty.  This  is,  indeed,  a  sad  self -emanci- 
pation of  the  Russian  conscience;  a  violent  reaction  against 
the  intellectual,  social,  and  scientific  supremacy  of  Europe.  The 
part  of  initiator  and  savior  is  henceforth  to  be  acted  by  the 
people  till  now  left  in  ignorance;  light  is  to  come  from  the 
dweller  in  darkness.  Having  lost  his  faith  in  Europe,  the  Rus- 
sian has  again  begun  to  believe  in  Muscovy.  He  finds  his  de- 
spised country  superior  to  others  on  account  of  its  very  inferior- 
ity. This  is  logical.  Modern  civilization  being  once  con- 
demned, that  country  is  best  adapted  for  future  creations  in 
which  the  past  has  left  the  freest  field  to  the  present;  where 
modern  culture  and  art  have  built  so  little  and  have  penetrated 
so  slightly  beneath  the  surface  that  the  necessary  clearing  and 
uprooting  are  most  easy.  The  Russian  people,  having  the  least 
to  lose  by  destruction,  thus  becomes  the  chosen  people  of  radical 
revolution.  And  thus,  through  the  negations  of  nationality  and 
fatherland,  the  Russian  revolutionist  returns  to  the  glorification 
of  country  and  people,  which  are  exalted  in  his  eyes  by  their 
nudity  and  poverty.  —  Nation,  May  and  June,  1882. 


130  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

THE  SITE  OP  PABADISE  * 

Where  lay  Adam  and  Eve's  Paradise  ?  or,  Where  is  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden?  was  during  former  ages  a  question  of  profound 
religious  curiosity.  Where  did  the  legends  of  the  Hebrews  place 
the  first  abode  of  man  ?  is  in  our  days  still  a  question  of  consider- 
able interest  among  Biblical  critics.  To  the  one  and  the  other 
most  diverse  answers  have  been  rendered  by  scholars.  The  diffi- 
culty consists  in  identifying  two  of  the  four  streams  (or 
"  rivers  ")  into  which,  according  to  the  story  of  Genesis  (ii. 
8-14),  was  parted  the  stream  that  came  out  of  Eden  to  water 
the  garden.  There  is  no  dispute  concerning  the  two  named  last : 
they  are  the  Tigris  (in  Hebrew,  Hiddekel)  and  Euphrates ;  but 
where  is  the  Pison,  which  compasses  the  whole  land  of  Havilah, 
where  excellent  gold  is  found,  and  also  bdellium  and  the  sJioham- 
stone?  And  where  is  the  Gihon,  which  compasses  the  whole 
land  of  Gush  ?  Our  author  examines  one  after  another  the  solu- 
tions propounded  by  the  various  commentators,  and  states  his 
own,  with  an  array  of  learning  which,  in  the  old  field  of  Biblical 
inquiry,  shows  him  a  worthy  disciple  of  his  father,  Franz 
Delitzsch,  and  in  the  new  domain  of  Assyriology  a  compeer  of 
Oppert,  Schrader,  and  other  famous  students.  It  is  needless  to 
follow  him  here  in  his  survey,  in  which  he  has  been  preceded 
by  so  many  expounders  of  Genesis,  or  in  his  refutations,  which 
are  not  novel  either;  but  we  may  be  allowed,  for  the  sake  of 
such  of  our  readers  as  are  not  familiar  with  this  curious  chapter 
of  laborious  exegesis  and  fanciful  speculation,  to  convey  an  idea 
of  the  maze  of  conflicting  opinions  by  an  abridged  statement  of 
a  recent  German  commentator : 

"The  exegetical  views  respecting  the  passage  divide  themselves 
into  the  historical,  the  allegorical,  and  the  mythical.  The  historical 
views,  again,  fall  into  two  classes:  those  that  maintain  the  possi- 
bility of  yet  determining  the  region  of  Paradise,  and  such  as  sup- 
pose the  configuration  of  the  earth  to  have  been  so  changed  by  the 
flood  that  the  place  of  union  of  the  four  rivers  cannot  now  be  pointed 
out.  .  .  .  Calvin,  Huetius,  Bochart,  and  others :  —  Paradise  lay  in 

1  Wo  lag  das  Parodies  t  Eine  biblisch-assyriologische  Studie.  Mit  zahl- 
reichen  assyriologischen  Beitragen  zur  biblischen  Lander-  und  Volkerkunde 
und  einer  Karte  Babyloniens.  Von  Dr.  Friedrich  Delitzsch,  Professor  der 
Assyriologie  an  der  Universitat  Leipzig.  Leipzig.  1881. 


THE    SITE    OF   PAKADISE  131 

the  district  in  which  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  unite ;  the  Pison  and 
the  Gihon  are  the  two  principal  mouths  of  the  Shat-al-Arab.  .  .  . 
Hopkinson :  —  Paradise  was  the  region  of  Babylon ;  the  two  canals 
of  the  Euphrates  form  half  the  number  of  the  four  rivers.  .  .  . 
Harduin :  —  In  Galilee.  .  .  .  Hasse :  —  Paradise  lay  in  East  Prus- 
sia. .  .  .  Clericus  and  others:  —  Paradise  lay  in  Syria.  .  .  .  The 
my thico -theological,  or  strictly  mythological,  view  makes  it  the  story 
of  the  four  world-rivers  that  come  from  the  hills  of  heaven  and 
wander  over  the  earth.  .  .  .  According  to  the  historical  view  of 
Reland  and  Calmet,  Pison  denotes  the  Phasis,  which  rises  in  the 
Moschian  mountains,  is  connected  with  the  gold-land  of  Colchis  so 
famed  in  antiquity  (Colchis  =  Havilah),  and  flows  into  the  Black 
Sea ;  Gihon  is  the  Aras,  or  Araxes,  which  likewise  rises  in  Armenia, 
and  flows  into  the  Caspian  Sea;  Gush  is  the  land  of  the  Cossseans, 
which  Strabo  and  Diodorus  place  in  the  neighborhood  of  Media  and 
the  Caspian  Sea.  According  to  this,  Armenia  would  be  the  terri- 
tory of  the  ancient  Paradise.  .  .  .  Finally,  according  to  [Franz] 
Delitzsch,  the  Pison  must  refer  to  the  Indus,  and  its  river  territory 
to  India,  while  the  Gihon  is  the  Nile." 

To  complete  the  picture,  let  us  add  that  the  first  stream, 
Pison,  has  been  identified  not  only  with  the  Phasis  and  the 
Indus,  but  also  with  the  Nile,  the  Blue  Nile,  the  Ganges,  the 
Hyphasis,  the  Hydaspes,  the  Araxes,  the  Chrysorrhoas,  the 
Besynga  of  Further  India,  the  Danube,  etc. ;  and  that  among 
the  various  identifications  of  the  Gihon  there  is  also  this, 
Gihon  =•  Oceanus  —  linguistically  thus  explained  by  the  late 
Tayler  Lewis:  6  Ti-ov — o  Tecav — oe  K«oi> — 6  Keaz> — £l-fceav-o<;, 
or,  the  Gihon,  the  Kehan,  the  Kean,  the  Ocean-river.  Professor 
Friedrich  Delitzsch's  critical  speculations  —  which,  as  to  the 
main  point,  are  a  restatement,  with  important  modifications,  of 
the  old  view  of  J.  Hopkinson,  in  his  Descriptio  Paradisi  (1594) 
—  carry  us  back  to  the  land  and  language  of  Babylonia.  Every- 
thing in  the  earliest  history  of  mankind,  as  told  in  the  first  chap- 
ters of  Genesis,  points  toward  that  country.  Noah's  ark  was 
uplifted  on  the  first  day  of  the  deluge:  the  land  where  it  was 
built  must  have  been  a  lowland,  argues  our  author.  No  allusion 
is  made  to  vast  expanses  traversed  by  the  ark  before  it  reached 
Mount  Ararat:  the  lowland  must,  therefore,  have  been  at  no 
great  distance  from  eastern  Armenia ;  Babylonia  is  a  lowland 
thus  situated.  Postdiluvian  mankind  builds  its  world-tower  on 


132  MICHAEL   HEILPKIN 

the  plain  of  Babylonia.  Eden  itself  is  distinctly  connected  with, 
the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  rivers  stated  to  have  flowed  out  of  it. 
That  well-watered  garden-land  cannot  have  been  in  Assyria,  for 
there  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  could  not  be  imagined  issuing 
from  it  as  branches  of  one  stream:  it  must  be  sought  in  the 
Babylonian  plain.  This  plain,  bordered  by  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates,  has,  it  is  true,  no  room  for  two  other  rivers;  but 
must  we,  asks  Professor  Delitzsch,  following  Hopkinson,  recog- 
nize in  the  Pison  and  Gihon  two  streams  resembling  in  charac- 
ter the  Tigris  and  Euphrates?  Is  not  the  word  rialiar  (which 
the  Authorized  Version  renders  by  river}  used  in  Hebrew,  as  it 
is  in  Arabic  and  Babylonian,  also  of  canals  ?  Is  not  the  riaJuir 
Chebar,  on  the  banks  of  which  Ezekiel  saw  his  vision,  clearly 
and  repeatedly  stated  to  have  been  "  in  the  land  of  the  Chal- 
deans "  —  that  is,  in  Babylonia  —  and  not  in  Mesopotamia, 
where  it  has  been  erroneously  sought  ?  The  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions have  lists  of  narati,  or  streams,  placing  canals  side  by  side 
with  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates.  The  parting  of  the  stream  of 
Paradise  into  several  branches  obviously  refers  to  irrigation. 

But  here  a  difficulty  arises :  Should  canals  constructed  by  the 
hand  of  man  have  entered  into  the  description  of  Paradise,  pre- 
pared for  an  abode  of  the  first  of  the  species  ?  Professor  De- 
litzsch, who  has  very  little  reverence  for  the  legend  he  treats  of, 
and  believes  it  to  be  derived  from  a  Babylonian  source,  has  no 
hesitation  in  discarding  this  objection.  There  was  hardly  any 
difference  perceptible,  he  thinks,  between  the  two  great  rivers 
and  the  canals  of  Babylonia.  The  canals  were  broad  and  navi- 
gable like  the  rivers,  gave  like  these  rise  to  other  smaller  water 
courses,  and  were  of  so  exceedingly  ancient  an  origin  that  the 
narrator  could,  without  committing  a  flagrant  anachronism,  con- 
nect them  with  the  very  planting  of  the  divine  garden.  Arrian, 
in  describing  the  Pallacopas  canal,  found  it  necessary  to  remark 
that  it  was  an  artificial  channel,  and  not  a  river  derived  from 
springs.  Moreover,  it  is  certain  that  a  part  of  the  Babylonian 
canals  are  not  of  originally  artificial  construction,  but  ancient 
river  beds  or  branches  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris,  converted 
into  navigable  or  irrigating  channels  when  those  two  rivers  had 
carved  out  their  permanent  beds.  The  canals  Pison  and  Gihon 
may  have  been  known  as  such  branches  of  the  main  streams. 


THE    SITE    OF   PARADISE  133 

Now,  -where  lay  the  lands  Havilah  and  Gush,  around  which 
those  water-courses  wound  ?  Havilah,  answers  Delitzsch,  is  the 
east-north-easterly  portion  of  the  Syrian  Desert,  bordering  on 
the  lower  Euphrates,  a  tract  of  which  is  designated  by  the  Arabs 
as  Ard-el-Halat,  land  of  dunes.  The  Hebrew  name  ('havllah, 
or  ha-'hdvilah,  the  sandy,  from  'hoi,  sand)  has  the  same  meaning. 
Gold  is  proved  by  cuneiform  inscriptions  to  have  been  a  prod- 
uct of  the  adjoining  territory  of  Bit-Yakin,  northeast  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Euphrates.  Bdellium,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  Pliny,  was  a  native  product  of  Babylonia.  The  stone  shoham 
is  the  samtu  (fern,  of  sdmu)  of  the  inscriptions,  a  famous  min- 
eral product  of  Meluha,  a  Babylonian  district  rich  in  precious 
stones.  Thus  everything  connected  with  Havilah  leads  us  back 
to  the  vicinity  of  the  lower  Euphrates.  The  Gush  of  the  story 
of  Paradise  is  surely  not  the  African  Gush,  Gush  in  the  narrower 
sense,  or  Ethiopia.  It  is  the  land  of  the  Kassu  of  the  inscrip- 
tions, who  had  separated  from  their  kindred  in  the  mountain 
ranges  north  of  Susiana,  the  Cossseans  of  the  classical  writers, 
and  established  themselves  as  rulers  of  central  Babylonia  — 
a  people,  perhaps,  identical  with  the  Gasdim,  or  Chaldeans,  of 
the  Scriptures.  The  Pison  of  Havilah  is  the  Pallacopas  of  the 
Greeks  (pallaco  —  Heb.  peleg,  Ass.  palgu,  canal),  that  great 
canal  west  of  the  Euphrates,  extending  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Babylonia  to  far  below  the  present  mouth  of  the  river  in  the 
Persian  Gulf,  of  which  Eitter  surmised  that  it  presented  the 
most  ancient  and  most  direct  bed  of  the  great  stream,  in  its  east- 
ward-trending course  to  the  gulf.  The  stream  compassing  the 
land  of  Gush  is  the  canal  Shat  en-Nil,  forming  an  opposite  curve 
east  of  the  Euphrates  to  that  of  the  Pallacopas  on  the  west,  and 
identical  with  the  Arahtu  of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions,  men- 
tioned as  nar  (river  or  canal)  immediately  after  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates,  and  also  designated  by  a  non-Semitic  name  which 
can  be  deciphered  as  Guhana  —  that  is,  Gihon. 

Thus  the  four  water  courses  into  which  the  stream  of  Eden 
was  parted  on  coming  out  of  it  were  the  Pallacopas,  the  Shat 
en-Nil,  and  the  lower  Euphrates  and  Tigris,  the  former  three 
branching  off  from  the  middle  Euphrates  near  Babylon,  and 
the  Tigris  communicating  with  it  through  a  network  of  canals 
and  little  channels.  The  middle  Euphrates  is  the  main  river, 


134  MICHAEL   HEILPKDT 

watering  with  its  numberless  branches  the  country  around  and 
north  of  Babylon,  which  is  Eden.  The  Euphrates  alone  waters 
it,  for  the  Tigris,  flowing  through  a  lower  bed,  only  receives 
water,  and  imparts  none,  through  the  connecting  channels.  The 
character  of  this  country,  as  described  by  Herodotus,  Xenophon, 
Strabo,  and  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  was  in  antiquity  such  as 
fully  to  deserve  the  appellation  bestowed  upon  it.  It  was  charm- 
ing beyond  comparison  by  its  luxuriant  vegetation,  variety  of 
excellent  products,  and  marvellous  cultivation.  The  Babylo- 
nians and  Assyrians  called  it  Kar-Dunias,  grove  of  the  God 
Dunias,  in  the  non-Semitic  equivalent  of  which  name  the  syl- 
lable Kar  is  replaced  by  Gin,  corresponding  to  the  Hebrew  gan 
in  gan  eden,  garden  of  Eden.  The  most  ancient  non-Semitic 
name  of  the  city  and  district  of  Babylon  was  Tintira,  meaning 
grove  of  life,  which  reminds  one  of  the  tree  of  life  in  the  narra- 
tive of  Genesis.  The  Hebrew  word  eden,  delight,  may,  in  this 
combination,  be  a  phonetic  imitation  of  the  non-Semitic  edin 
of  the  inscriptions,  which  means  plain. 

Unfortunately  for  the  theory  so  powerfully  advanced,  almost 
all  the  linguistic  evidences  by  which  it  is  supported  are  still  of 
doubtful  value,  the  etymology  of  the  Babylonian  names  in  most 
cases,  and  the  reading  in  some,  being  disputed  by  high  authori- 
ties in  this  obscure  field  of  inquiry.  Were  the  linguistic  points 
proved,  it  would  be  hard  to  resist  the  power  of  the  argument, 
in  spite  of  various  difficulties  arising  from  the  scanty  text  of 
Genesis  itself.  As  it  is,  although  all  other  solutions  of  the 
knotty  Biblical  problem  may  be  subject  to  still  graver  objec- 
tions, the  following  questions  militate  too  strongly  against  Pro- 
fessor Delitzsch's  solution :  Why,  if  the  stream  of  Eden  be  the 
middle  Euphrates,  is  it  left  unnamed  in  the  narrative,  though 
it  is  certain  that  the  Hebrews  were  perfectly  familiar  both  with 
the  middle  and  the  upper  course  of  that  river?  Why,  if  the 
Pison  and  Gihon  designate  the  canals  Pallacopas  and  Shat 
en-Nil,  are  they  said  to  compass  lands  which  the  canals  only 
traverse  ?  If  the  lower  Tigris  be  meant  by  the  Hiddekel,  why 
is  this  river  described  as  flowing  in  front  of  Assyria,  which  lay 
above  the  central  Mesopotamian  lowland  asserted  to  be  Eden? 
How  should  a  writer  familiar  with  the  whole  course  of  the 
Tigris  deem  its  lower  part  a  branch  of  the  Euphrates?  Why 


FKEEMAN'S   "ENGLISH  TOWNS"  135 

should  Gush,  a  name  which  commonly  designated  Ethiopia, 
have  been  used  by  the  narrator  in  a  sense  in  which  it  nowhere 
else  occurs  in  the  Scriptures,  without  the  least  further  defini- 
tion? Why,  on  the  other  hand,  is  Havilah,  if  the  Arabian 
borderland  so  well  known  to  the  Hebrews  be  meant,  so  fully 
described  by  its  products?  Who  tells  us  that  the  gold,  the 
bdellium,  and  the  shohana  of  Babylonia  were  also  characteristic 
of  the  adjoining  Havilah?  But  whether  these  objections,  in 
the  present  stage  of  Assyriological  studies,  be  fatal  to  the  theory 
of  Professor  Delitzsch  or  not,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that  his  dissertation,  amplified  as  it  is  by  supplementary  trea- 
tises on  the  ancient  geography  and  ethnology  of  the  Mesopo- 
tamian  and  neighboring  countries,  of  Canaan,  Egypt,  and 
Elam,  is  a  perfect  treasury  of  knowledge  —  made  most  ac- 
cessible by  excellent  indexes  —  and  probably  the  most  brilliant 
production  in  all  Biblico-Assyriological  literature. 

—  Nation,  March  15,  1883. 

FREEMAN'S  "ENGLISH  TOWNS  "* 

This  collection  contains  papers  of  two  kinds :  short  sketches, 
reprinted  from  the  Saturday  Review,  of  the  same  character  as 
the  author's  "  Historical  and  Architectural  Sketches,  chiefly 
Italian,"  and  his  "  Sketches  from  the  Subject  and  Neighbor- 
Lands  of  Venice,"  and  longer  ones,  resembling  those  on  cities 
and  countries  in  the  third  series  of  his  "  Historical  Essays,"  and 
originally  composed  and  published  as  addresses  to  various  so- 
cieties, several  of  them  as  presidential  opening  addresses  to  the 
Historical  Section  of  the  Archaeological  Institute.  In  both 
kinds  of  papers  the  author  has,  "  in  revising  them  for  the  re- 
print, made  any  changes  that  seemed  to  be  called  for,  whether 
by  adding,  leaving  out,  or  any  other  form  of  improvement." 
The  illustrations  are  in  the  same  style  and  made  by  the  same 
artists  as  those  in  the  "  Subject  and  Neighbor-Lands  of  Venice." 
The  essays  —  thirty-one  in  number,  grouped  not  in  the  chrono- 
logical order  of  composition,  but  according  to  geographical  divi- 

1  English  Towns  and  Districts;  a  Series  of  Addresses  and  Sketches.  By 
Edward  A.  Freeman,  M.A.  With  illustrations  and  map.  London  and  New 
York:  Macmillan  &  Co.  1883. 


136  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

sions  —  are  mainly  devoted  to  the  pointing  out  of  historical 
and  architectural  features,  not  to  detailed  description,  anti- 
quarian or  other.  Each  town  is  looked  on  and  presented  as  a 
whole,  with  a  kind  of  personal  history,  and  put  in  its  fitting 
place,  as  part  of  the  history  of  England.  "  The  city  itself  and 
its  history  are  something  greater  than  any  particular  object  in 
the  city." 

A  quarter  of  a  century  lies  between  the  composition  of  the 
oldest  and  that  of  the  latest  of  these  sketches,  but  they  are  all  — 
probably  owing  in  part  to  the  thorough  revision,  with  its  various 
"forms  of  improvement"  —  almost  equally  marked  by  the 
intense  peculiarities  of  Mr.  Freeman's  historical  and  antiqua- 
rian pen.  There  is  constant  dissection,  analysis,  definition  of 
terms,  marking  of  limits,  illustration  by  analogy,  elucidation 
by  contrast,  presentation  of  likeness  and  unlikeness,  repetition 
for  the  sake  of  clearness  or  inculcation  —  much  beautiful  work, 
some  that  is  tedious;  here  flashes  of  genius,  there  almost  pe- 
dantic hair-splitting ;  a  vast  display  of  knowledge  and  research, 
and  some  of  prejudice  and  conceit.  That  the  book  is  another 
rich  contribution  of  the  author  to  English  history  —  though 
offering  only  strings  of  bits  of  information,  and  nothing  com- 
plete in  itself  —  need  hardly  be  said  at  this  stage  of  Mr.  Free- 
man's fame;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  same  knowledge 
and  acumen,  with  less  mannerism,  might  have  made  it  incom- 
parably more  charming. 

In  "  Cardiff  and  Glamorgan,"  the  first  sketch,  the  historian 
asks  himself  these  questions:  Who  were  the  first  inhabitants 
of  the  country  ? 

"  Were  the  Britons  the  earliest  wave  of  Aryan  migration  in  these 
lands,  or  were  they  preceded  by  an  earlier  Aryan  and  Celtic  race  — 
that,  namely,  which  consists  of  the  Scots,  both  of  Britain  and  Ire- 
land? .  .  .  That  is  to  say,  is  the  wide  distinction  between  the  two 
branches  of  the  Celtic  race  in  these  islands,  between  the  Scots  or 
Gael,  and  the  Welsh  or  Britons,  a  distinction  which  arose  in  these 
islands,  or  do  they  represent  two  successive  waves  of  Aryan  migra- 
tion ?  .  .  .  And,  again,  can  either  branch  of  the  Celtic  race,  Gael  or 
Britain,  claim  to  be  the  first  inhabitants  of  the  land?  Were  the 
Celts  preceded  by  races  kindred  to  the  primitive  non-Aryan  dwell- 
ers in  Europe,  of  whom  the  Finns  of  the  North  and  the  Basques  of 


FKEEMAN'S    "ENGLISH    TOWNS"  137 

the  Pyrenees  are  remnants?  Were  the  Silurians,  whose  descend- 
ants form  a  main  element  of  the  population  in  South  Wales  and  the 
neighboring  districts,  a  people  closely  akin  to  the  non- Aryan  Ibe- 
rians of  Spain,  as  *  has  been  held  by  two  writers,  both  of  great  name, 
but  with  a  long  interval  of  ages  between  them  —  by  Tacitus  and  by 
Professor  Huxley '  ?  " 

Mr.  Freeman,  unlike  other  recent  authorities  (see  "  Celtic 
Britain,"  in  the  Nation  of  July  19)  leaves  the  questions  un- 
answered, remarking  only  in  regard  to  the  latter  points :  "  I  know 
not  whether  Britons  will  be  ready  to  give  up  Caradoc  as  a 
British  brother;  I  should  certainly  be  unwilling  to  give  him 
np  as  an  Aryan  cousin.  .  .  .  One  thing  is  plain,  that  if  the 
people  of  South  Wales  are  really  of  a  non-Aryan  stock,  the 
process  of  Aryan  assimilation  has  been  very  thoroughly  carried 
out."  The  British  tongue  is  still  living  in  these  parts;  if 
Basque  or  any  other  non- Aryan  speech  ever  lived  here,  it  long 
ago  became  extinct  in  vale  and  mountain.  That  it  should  have 
become  extinct  through  assimilation  must  appear  to  Mr.  Free- 
man very  improbable,  as  he  remarks  in  another  essay,  "  Anglia 
Transwalliana  " :  "  English  has  not  assimilated,  though  it  has 
largely  displaced,  the  Welsh  and  Gaelic  tongues,  with  which  it 
has  no  connection  beyond  the  remotest  Aryan  kindred,"  while 
"  the  tongues  of  the  Dane  and  the  Fleming,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  Angle  and  the  Saxon,  have  all  been  drawn  together- by  the 
attraction  of  a  single  type  of  standard  English "  —  which 
teaches  us  the  lesson,  "  how  easily  a  standard  form  of  any  lan- 
guage assimilates  all  the  kindred  dialects  of  a  country,  but  how 
little  effect  it  has  on  dialects  which  are  not  kindred." 

What  the  type  of  standard  English  was  that  attracted  and 
absorbed  all  other  dialects  Mr.  Freeman  tells  us  in  his  very 
elaborate  paper  on  Lincoln  ("  Lindum  Colonia,"  "  an  heathen  " 
city  on  "  an  hill  ")  :  "  The  tongue  which  we  call  English,  while 
it  is  neither  the  Northumbrian  of  York  nor  the  Saxon  of  Win- 
chester, is  the  intermediate  Anglian  speech  of  Eastern  Mercia. 
...  It  was  a  Lincolnshire  man,  a  Bourne  man,  who  gave  the 
English  language  its  present  shape.  .  .  .  We  do  not  speak  the 
tongue  of  Alfred;  we  do  not  speak  the  tongue  of  Waltheof; 
but  we  do  speak  the  tongue  of  Hereward,  the  tongue  in  which 
the  chronicler  of  Peterborough  kept  on  our  native  annals,  till 


138  MICHAEL   HEILPRDT 

the  pen  dropped  from  his  hand  as  he  set  down  the  coming  .  .  . 
of  the  King  who  wore  his  crown  in  Coles wegen's  church  of 
Wigford."  The  birth  of  English  learning,  however,  is  traced 
further  back  in  time,  and  further  north,  in  "  Points  in  Early 
Northumbrian  History,"  one  of  the  most  interesting,  if  not  the 
most  interesting,  of  the  thirty-one  essays  of  the  collection : 

"  Do  not  forget  that  the  English  tongue,  that  the  earliest  compo- 
sitions in  the  English  tongue,  are  more  ancient  than  the  migration 
which  brought  Englishmen  to  the  shores  of  Britain.  The  first  poets 
of  the  English  race  belonged,  not  to  this  our  island  England,  but  to 
the  older  England  on  the  mainland.  Had  their  tongue  been  Greek 
instead  of  English,  their  fame  would  have  sounded  from  one  end  of 
heaven  to  the  other.  But  the  poets  of  our  Homeric  epic  and  of  our 
Homeric  catalogue,  the  gleemen  who  sang  the  tale  of  Beowulf  and 
the  song  of  the  Traveller,  being  English,  are  nameless.  But  of  the 
first  Christian  English  minstrelsy,  of  the  first  recorded  English 
minstrelsy  on  British  ground,  the  land  of  Northumberland,  the  land 
of  Deira,  is  the  parent.  Yours  [Northumbria's]  is  Csedmon,  the 
bard  of  the  Creation,  the  bard  of  the  battles  of  the  patriarchs  —  he 
who,  a  thousand  years  before  Milton  wrote,  had  forestalled  Milton, 
alike  in  his  daring  subject  and  in  his  majestic  treatment." 

Here  —  as  often  elsewhere  —  we  have  Mr.  Freeman  with  all 
his  passionate,  almost  superstitious,  sympathy  for  everybody 
and  everything  in  the  remote  past  that  promoted  the  rise,  the 
"  making,"  and  "  welding,"  the  greatness  and  literary  bloom  of 
England,  of  English  England.  He  never  forgets  to  teach  his 
hearers  or  readers  to  see  a  blessing  in  every  event,  however  hor- 
rible and  shocking,  which  tended  directly  or  indirectly  to  "  make 
England  England."  He  graphically  describes,  under  "  Exeter," 
the  heroic  but  vain  resistance  of  that  city  to  the  Norman  Con- 
queror, and  immediately  adds :  "  But  we  see  none  the  less  that 
it  was  for  the  good  of  England  that  Exeter  should  fall.  A 
question  was  there  decided  greater  than  the  question  whether 
England  should  be  ruled  by  Harold,  Eadgar,  or  William,  the 
question  whether  England  should  be  one."  Northumberland's 
resistance  was  equally  stout  and  vain,  but  "the  Norman  con- 
quest was,  in  very  truth,  a  Saxon  conquest.  It  ruled  that  Eng- 
land should  be  forever  an  united  kingdom."  Going  further 
back,  we  find  Silchester  —  of  whose  greatness  in  Eoman  times, 


FREEMAN'S    "ENGLISH  TOWNS"  139 

as  attested  by  recently  dtig-up  remains,  we  read  a  wonderful 
tale  —  ruthlessly  swept  away  by  the  conquering  English ;  but 
mourn  not :  "  It  is  because  Silchester  and  places  like  Silchester 
were  left  waste  without  inhabitants  —  because  those  who  dwelt 
in  them  were  cut  off  by  the  sword  or  driven  to  save  their  lives 
in  remote  corners  of  Britain  or  Gaul  —  because  for  a  hundred 
years  the  faith  of  Christ  was  wiped  out  before  the  faith  of 
Woden  —  it  is  because  of  all  this  that  Britain  has  not  been  as 
Gaul  and  Spain,  and  that  we  still  keep  the  laws  and  the  tongue 
which  we  brought  from  the  mouths  of  the  Elbe  and  the  Eider." 
"  Had  it  been  otherwise,"  we  are  told  under  "  Carisbrooke," 
"  had  the  slaughter  and  havoc  by  our  fathers  been  less  complete, 
Englishmen  would  not  have  remained  Englishmen,  and  Britain 
would  never  have  become  England."  The  following  is,  per- 
haps, the  best  specimen  of  the 'brutal  pitch  to  which  Mr.  Free- 
man carries  his  philosophy  of  history: 

"  We  were  the  Turks,  and  worse  than  the  Turks,  of  those  days ; 
the  sword  was  our  only  argument;  the  persecuted  Briton  had  not 
even  the  chance  of  Koran  or  tribute.  But  simply  because  we  carried 
slaughter  and  havoc  to  a  more  fearful  pitch  than  any  Turk  ever 
carried  them,  for  that  very  reason  our  conquest  carried  with  it  the 
hopes  of  better  things.  We  stood  on  the  ground  which  we  made 
without  inhabitants,  to  grow  up,  not  as  a  mere  conquering  caste,  but 
as  a  new  people  of  the  land.  We  stood  ready  to  receive  a  new  faith 
and  a  higher  civilization,  .  .  .  from  the  Eoman  and  the  Scot.  .  .  . 
We  may  weep  for  the  monks  of  Bangor,  but  the  day  of  their  mas- 
sacre was  none  the  less  one  of  the  great  days  in  the  growth  of  the 
English  nation.  .  .  .  Deva  was  the  last  city  which  was  taken  only 
to  be  left  desolate.  When  JEthelfrith  slew  the  British  monks,  part 
of  England  was  already  Christian.  .  .  .  And  before  that  same 
seventh  century  had  passed,  Northumberland  had  become  ...  the 
special  home  of  learning  and  holiness,  the  cradle  of  the  history  of 
our  people,  the  cradle  of  the  poetry  of  our  tongue." 

Of  course  our  historian  does  not  mean  to  say  that  the  English 
exterminators  of  the  Christian  Britons  acted  righteously  in 
their  heathen  blindness  and  barbarous  ignorance  of  historic 
pragmatism;  he  only  delights  in  the  strength  and  irresistible- 
ness  of  the  English  sword  and  will.  Thus  speaks  the  historian 
of  England.  Freeman,  the  antiquarian  and  student  of  towers, 


140  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

gates,  and  steeples,  bows  before  the  same  "  ruling  "  of  history. 
He  cannot  compare  Exeter,  the  English  city,  as  an  architec- 
tural conglomeration  of  historical  interest,  with  any  of  the 
Continental  towns  of  a  class  even  one  degree  lower  than  Venice 
or  Florence,  Treves  or  Ravenna.  England  has  few  spots  so 
rich  at  once  in  history  and  art  as  to  rival  "  the  last  home  of  Caro- 
lingian  kingship  on  the  rock  of  Laon  "  or  the  walls  of  successive 
ages  —  "  spreading  each  round  another,  like  the  circles  of 
Ecbatana"  —  which  envelop  the  minster  and  the  castles  of 
Le  Mans;  "the  Bern  of  Theodoric  by  the  Adige"  or  "the 
Bern  of  Berchthold  by  the  Aar  " ;  the  council-house  of  Liibeck 
or  Ghent,  of  Padua  or  Piacenza ;  the  episcopal  palace  of  Liege 
or  the  ducal  palace  of  Dijon;  the  castled  steep  of  Marburg  or 
the  hill  of  Marburg,  with  its  many-towered  church,  walls,  and 
gateways.  "  Yet  we  need  not  grieve,"  he  patriotically  tells  his 
fellow-patriots,  "  that  we  are  in  this  matter  poorer  than  other 
nations.  .  .  .  Why  is  the  history  of  Nurnberg  greater  than  the 
history  of  Exeter?  Simply  because  the  history  of  England  is 
greater  than  the  history  of  Germany.  Why  have  not  our  cities 
such  mighty  senate-houses,  such  gorgeous  palaces,  as  the  seats  of 
republican  freedom  or  of  princely  rule  among  the  Italian  and 
Teutonic  cities  ?  It  is  because  England  was  one,  while  Italy  and 
Germany  and  Gaul  were  still  divided."  England's  nobles  and 
prelates  were  not  allowed  to  grow  into  sovereign  princes,  nor  her 
cities  and  boroughs  to  grow  into  sovereign  commonwealths.  In 
observations  like  these  the  antiquarian  Freeman  —  to  whom  we 
are  unable  to  do  full  justice  —  again  merges  in  the  historian. 

—  Nation,  September  6,  1883. 


ANCIENT  ISEAEL  * 
I 

Half  a  century  ago,  ancient  Israelitish  history  was  generally 
written  as  Roman  history  was  before  Niebuhr.  It  began  with 

1  Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel.  Von  Dr.  Bernhard  Stade,  Professor  an 
der  Universitat  Giessen.  Mit  Illustrationen  und  Karten.  Vol.  I.  Berlin. 
1887.  New  York:  Weatermann.  ['Oncken's  Weltgeschichte  in  Einzeldar- 
stellungen.'] 


ANCIENT   ISKAEL  141 

Ur  of  the  Chaldees  and  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs,  just  as  the 
history  of  Rome  began  with  Alba  Longa,  its  kings,  and  Romulus 
and  Remus.  The  narratives  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Joshua,  or 
Judges  were  repeated  like  the  legends  of  Livy,  as  traditions  con- 
taining much  that  is  naturally  impossible,  but  on  the  whole 
historical.  The  story  of  Sarah's  maternity  might  be  left  untold, 
like  that  of  Rhea  Silvia's,  but  the  wonderful  escape  of  the  infant 
Moses  appeared  more  natural  than  that  of  Romulus,  the  capture 
of  Jericho  was  recorded  like  that  of  Veii,  and  the  regicide  of 
Ehud  like  the  deed  of  Mucius  Scsevola.  The  miraculous  was 
reverently  separated  from  the  naturally  possible,  and  this  pre- 
sented as  history.  Jacob  migrated  with  his  family  through 
Canaan,  though  he  may  not  have  wrestled  with  God  or  an  angel ; 
Moses  gave  to  his  people  laws  at  Sinai,  no  matter  whether  the 
mountain  smoked  or  not;  Joshua  routed  the  Canaanites  at 
Gibeon,  the  sun  standing  or  moving;  Samson  again  and  again 
smote  the  Philistines,  though  never,  perhaps,  with  the  jaw 
bone  of  an  ass.  This  manner  of  writing  the  early  history  of 
Israel  has  now  become  almost  obsolete,  though  not  through  the 
powerful  efforts  of  any  single  Niebuhr  in  this  field. 

Israelitish  history  has  been  slowly  but  completely  revolution- 
ized by  the  steady  and  progressive  labor  of  many  eminent  schol- 
ars, mostly  German.  The  discoveries  of  Egyptology  and  Assyri- 
ology  have  had  their  share  in  the  work.  Biblical  criticism,  an 
evolution  of  very  old  growth,  has  paved  the  way  for  critical  his- 
tory, which,  after  emancipating  itself  from  the  bondage  of 
orthodoxy  about  the  close  of  the  last  century,  has  in  our  time 
succeeded  in  throwing  off  also  the  shackles  of  literary  tradition. 
Ewald's  "  Geschichte  des  Yolkes  Israel,"  which  made  its  ap- 
pearance more  than  forty  years  ago,  marks  the  first  great  ad- 
vance. But  Ewald  was  more  bold  than  free,  more  suggestive 
than  sound;  he  stimulated  to  further  work  without  laying 
foundations.  Hitzig,  whose  smaller  history  with  the  same  title 
(1869)  followed  Ewald's  last  edition,  was  freer,  almost  reck- 
less, in  the  treatment  of  details,  but  not  more  independent  of 
the  traditional  views  concerning  the  composition  and  compara- 
tive documentary  value  of  the  Pentateuch  narratives.  But 
almost  simultaneously  with  Hitzig's  book  appeared,  in  Holland, 
Kuenen's  "  Godsdienst  van  Israel,"  which,  clearly  developing 


142  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

the  results  successively  matured  by  Vatke,  Reuss,  and  Graf  as 
to  the  growth  of  Israelitish  religion  and  legislation,  presented 
a  wholly  transformed  aspect  of  both  the  history  and  historical 
literature  of  the  people.  Wellhausen,  in  his  "  Geschichte 
Israels"  (vol.  i,  1878)  and  other  writings,  has  carried  out  in 
grand  style,  and  firmly  established,  the  "Graf  and  Kuenen 
theory."  Stade,  in  the  volume  before  us,  stands  on  the  same 
basis,  but  goes  a  little  beyond  Wellhausen  in  historical  and 
literary  iconoclasm,  and  evinces  sufficient  independent  research 
and  original  ingenuity  to  take  a  place  among  the  successive 
leading  writers  on  the  subject.  To  define  his  standpoint  is  to 
sketch  the  latest  stage  at  which  Israelitish  historiography,  led 
by  the  strings  of  Biblical  text  criticism  and  archaeology,  has 
arrived  in  Germany  and  Holland.  Let  us  hear  him  first  as  to 
the  narrative  sources  of  his  history. 

The  Pentateuch  was  composed  of  original  documents  of 
widely  different  character.  It  embraces  two  works  presenting 
the  early  legends  of  the  people,  written  with  the  object  of  glori- 
fying the  national  worship;  two  law  books;  and  a  work  com- 
prising both  legend  and  law.  Its  Hebrew  name,  Torah  (law),  is 
derived  from  the  book  of  laws  discovered  during  the  reign  of 
King  Josiah,  in  621  B.  c.,  which  forms  now  a  part  of  the  so- 
called  fifth  book  of  Moses,  or  Deuteronomy.  Its  oldest  original 
document  is  the  historical  writing  of  a  Judsean  narrator,  now 
distinguished  as  the  Jehovist,  from  the  constant  use  of  the  name 
Jehovah.  This  document  contains  mainly  mythical  accounts 
referring  to  the  patriarchs,  Moses,  and  the  sacred  spots  in 
Canaan.  It  was  probably  composed  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
ninth  century  B.  c.  The  next  in  age  is  the  work  of  the  Ephraim- 
itish  Elohist,  often  called  the  second  Elohist,  from  whom  we 
have  the  Decalogue,  and  whose  images  of  God  (whom  in  his 
recitals  of  pre-Mosaic  events  he  calls  Elohim)  are  less  anthro- 
pomorphic than  those  of  the  older  narrator.  It  was  written 
about  750  B.  c.  These  two  works  were  loosely  woven  into  one, 
about  a  century  and  a  quarter  later,  by  a  writer  imbued  with 
the  spirit  of  the  prophetic  productions  of  the  preceding  periods, 
who  may  be  designated  as  the  first  or  pre-Deuteronomic  re- 
dactor. The  same  (or  else  the  later  Deuteronomistic)  redactor 
may  have  inserted  the  third  component  part,  the  so-called  Book 


ANCIENT   ISRAEL  143 

of  the  Covenant  (contained  in  Ex.  xx-xxiv),  a  codified  collec- 
tion of  ancient  law  usages,  probably  executed  about  690  B.  c.  A 
more  important  component  part  is  the  Torah  discovered  and 
promulgated  in  621,  the  Deuteronomy  proper  —  with  an  his- 
torical introduction  and  exhortative  supplements  —  in  the  spirit 
of  which  some  of  the  older  narratives  were  redactor]  ally  modi- 
fied. The  youngest  part  is  the  Priestly  Codex,  or  the  Ground- 
work, composed  in  Babylonian  exile.  It  consists  of  legal  enact- 
ments and  narrative  portions.  The  former,  though  ascribed  to 
Mosaic  revelation,  were  elaborated  for  use  in  the  restored  Jew- 
ish state  and  temple;  the  latter  gave  a  post-exilian  coloring  to 
the  patriarchal  history  of  Israel.  A  later  redactor  —  Ezra  or 
a  man  of  his  time,  about  460  B.  c.  —  joined  the  Groundwork  to 
the  older  historical  parts,  adapted  the  latter  to  the  chronological 
plan  of  the  former,  and  completed  the  Pentateuchal  compilation. 
Very  similar  in  composition  is  the  book  of  Joshua,  which,  in 
fact,  forms  with  the  Pentateuch  a  larger  whole,  now  frequently 
designated  as  the  Hexateuch.  It  contains  little  of  the  narrative 
of  the  Jehovist,  has  ample  extracts  from  the  (second)  Elohist, 
shows  the  same  Deuteronomistic  varnishing,  and  comprises  por- 
tions of  the  Groundwork.  The  Jehovist  knew  no  Joshua  as  con- 
queror of  the  land  west  of  the  Jordan;  the  Elohist  recounted 
this  conquest  under  Joshua  —  originally  an  Ephraimitish  hero 
—  in  imitation  of  the  legends  of  Moses's  conquest  of  the  Trans- 
jordanic  lands;  the  Groundwork  fully  transformed  Joshua  into 
a  second  Moses.  A  redactor  later  than  Ezra  combined  all  these 
component  parts  into  the  present  book,  when  the  Pentateuch 
had  already  obtained  its  canonical  sanction  as  the  Torah.  The 
Torah  alone  was  accepted  by  the  Samaritans  as  canonical.  Even 
additions  of  a  later  period,  which  are  wanting  in  the  Septuagint 
version,  are  discoverable  in  Joshua.  The  book  of  Judges  is  a 
still  freer,  unauthentic  compilation.  Its  heroes  are  almost  all 
unhistorical ;  they  are  heroes  eponymi,  legendary  representa- 
tives of  clans.  Thus  Jephthah  is  designated  as  the  son  of  Gilead, 
and  Gilead,  like  Gad,  designates  a  tribe  and  its  territory.  What 
is  related  of  his  fight  with  the  Ephraimites  is  an  imitation  of 
the  story  of  Gideon.  His  fight  with  the  Ammonites  is  told  with- 
out any  tangible  features.  The  names  of  the  Judges  Ehud, 
Elon,  Tola,  and  Jair  appear  elsewhere  in  lists  of  towns  and 


144  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

clans.  That  Ibzan  and  Abdon  are  eponymi  representing  clans 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that  only  their  places  and  the  numbers 
of  their  children  are  stated.  "  These  remarks  will  have  proved 
that  a  period  of  judges  preceding  the  period  of  kings  cannot  be 
spoken  of  seriously."  There  were  kings,  or  chiefs  of  clans,  like 
Gideon  or  Shamgar,  but  no  judges  of  Israel.  There  was  no 
united  Israel  then,  and  still  less  an  Israel  theoretically  organ- 
ized, such  as  the  story  of  the  struggle  with  Benjamin  at  Gibeah 
presents  to  us.  This  story  is  a  Tendenzroman,  "  contradicting 
everything  we  know  of  Hebrew  antiquities."  Ruth  is  a  post- 
exilian  idyl,  also  composed  for  a  purpose.  The  picture  of  Sam- 
uel, in  the  first  book  of  that  name,  shows  most  clearly  "the 
character  of  Hebrew  historical  tradition  by  its  transformation 
of  the  traditional  matter."  In  the  oldest  traditional  form 
Samuel  is  a  seer  and  priest  of  the  Ephraimitish  town  of  Ramah. 
Later  he  is  brought  into  connection  with  the  ancient  sanctuary 
of  Shiloh,  as  the  true  heir  to  the  priesthood  of  the  house  of  Eli. 
Still  later  he  is  transformed  into  a  prophet  in  the  style  of  Amos 
or  Isaiah,  who  fearlessly  steps  before  the  king  and  declares  that 
God  likes  obedience  better  than  sacrifice.  The  second  book  of 
Samuel  and  the  books  of  Kings  contain,  of  course,  more  genu- 
inely historical  matter,  but  even  the  contents  of  the  last-named 
work  are  "  partly  worthless  and  almost  everywhere  deficient." 
Entirely  untrustworthy  is  Chronicles,  in  whatever  it  does  not 
directly  draw  from  the  other  books  of  the  canon,  although  here 
and  there  valuable  threads  are  woven  into  its  tissues. 

All  these  books,  as  we  now  have  them,  are  thus  very  decep- 
tive guides  as  to  the  earlier  periods.  And  yet  they  contain  a 
vast  amount  of  information.  To  make  their  accounts  valuable 
a  constant  application  of  critical  operations  is  needed,  in  which 
the  historian  is  guided  by  the  light  derived  from  Amos,  Hosea, 
Isaiah,  and  other  prophets,  whose  writings  not  only  are  true 
mirrors  of  their  own  times,  but  also  clearly  reflect  the  conditions 
of  things  in  preceding  ages.  A  few  poetical  fragments  of  older 
date,  imbedded  in  the  historical  relations,  can  also  be  turned  to 
good  account.  Every  historical  book,  every  narrative,  must  be 
analyzed  and  dissected  into  its  component  parts;  the  original 
text  and  its  age,  if  possible,  discovered ;  every  addition,  inser- 
tion, interpolation  —  and  they  are  numberless  —  found  out, 


ANCIENT    ISKAEL  145 

examined,  and  reduced  to  its  proper  value ;  concurrent,  explana- 
tory, or  contradictory  testimony  compared  and  weighed ;  every- 
thing spurious  fearlessly  rejected.  Out  of  the  saved  residue  the 
tissue  of  genuine  history  must  be  rewoven.  The  analytical  work 
of  free  criticism  has  been  carried  on  with  unremitting  zeal,  and 
often  with  corresponding  ingenuity  and  success,  for  more  than 
a  century;  the  reconstructing  process  is  of  our  own  age.  The 
minor  results  obtained  are  very  numerous,  much  rests  on  plausi- 
ble conjecture,  and  much  is  still  covered  with  obscurity.  The 
general  aspect  of  history  is  changed,  as  we  shall  see. 


II 

The  legends  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  our  author  em- 
phatically asserts,  embody  no  historical  facts.  They  were  local 
legends,  separately  clustering  around  sanctuaries  of  the  ancient 
Canaanitish  inhabitants  of  Palestine :  the  sanctuary  of  Hebron, 
the  sacred  well  of  Beer-sheba,  and  the  sacred  stone  of  Bethel. 
These  spots  were  sacred  before  the  arrival  of  the  Israelites  in  the 
land.  With  the  changes  of  the  religious  notions  of  the  dwellers 
around,  the  character  of  the  legends  varied ;  they  were  modified 
and  remodified.  The  Israelites  —  this  appears  almost  certain 
—  did  not  dwell  under  patriarchs  in  Palestine  west  of  the  Jor- 
dan, before  their  settlement  in  the  lands  east  of  that  river.  That 
they  migrated  into  Egypt  is  equally  improbable.  Joseph  is  a 
Palestinian  heros  eponymus,  the  legendary  representative  of  a 
tribe ;  his  transformation  into  a  ruler  of  Egypt  is  a  work  of  late 
fiction.  Even  the  poetical  fancy  which  made  the  Israelites 
enter  the  Nile  land  as  a  family  and  leave  it  as  a  nation,  left  all 
the  intervening  time  an  absolute  blank;  the  monuments  know 
nothing  whatever  of  the  whole  affair.  Searching,  as  some  Egyp- 
tologists still  do,  for  the  Pharaoh  of  the  oppression  or  the  traces 
of  the  exodus,  is  a  childish  amusement:  nothing  is  to  be  dis- 
covered in  Egypt  in  reference  to  Israelitish  history.  The  Israel- 
ites possessed  no  distinct  and  positive  historical  recollections 
reaching  back  beyond  the  time  of  the  settlement  in  western  Pal- 
estine. All  that  was  earlier  recollection  centred  dimly  in  the 
two  names  Moses  and  Sinai.  Moses  had  taught  them  at  Sinai 
to  worship  Jehovah.  This  worship  had  made  them  a  people  dis- 


146  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

tinguishable  from  other  members  of  the  Hebrew  race,  such  as 
the  Moabites,  Ammonites,  and  Edomites. 

The  Hebrew  race  was  kindred  to  the  Arabs  on  the  one  side 
and  to  the  Aramaeans  on  the  other.  Closely  akin  to  Israel  were 
the  Canaanites  west  of  the  Jordan  and  the  Lebanon,  including 
the  Phoanicians.  The  Israelites  were  descended  neither  from  a 
shem  nor  from  an  Eber.  They  were  called  Hebrews  ('ibrlm} 
by  their  western  Canaanitish  neighbors,  as  dwellers  beyond 
('eber}  the  Jordan  —  not  the  Euphrates,  as  former  explanations 
had  it.  They  called  themselves  sons  of  Shem  when  they  had 
become  masters  of  the  land  west  of  the  Jordan,  as  the  nobles  of 
the  land  (shem  meaning  name,  glory,  or  distinction).  They 
appear  to  have  been  originally  a  clan  established  east  of  the 
Jordan,  on  both  sides  of  the  Jabbok.  Their  heros  eponymus 
was  Israel,  the  legend  of  whom  was  subsequently  blended,  west 
of  the  Jordan,  with  the  legend  of  Jacob,  the  seat  of  which  was 
Bethel.  The  name  of  the  clan  was  extended  to  others  confeder- 
ated with  it,  in  the  same  way  in  which  the  appellations  Latins, 
Alemanni,  and  Teutons  have  gained  their  widely  comprehen- 
sive significations.  The  Hebrew  clans  which  in  later  times  con- 
stituted the  nation  of  Israel,  came  into  the  Transjordanic  region 
mainly  from  the  Sinaitic  peninsula;  some  immigration  may 
possibly  have  taken  place  from  regions  bordering  on  the  Eu- 
phrates, whence  the  legend  of  Abraham  derives  the  whole  race. 
'As  nomads  of  the  peninsula  they  lived  in  peaceful  relations  with 
the  probably  Arabic  tribe  of  the  Kenites  and  from  them  —  who 
were  perhaps  allies  of  the  Midianites  —  they  seem  to  have  re- 
ceived through  Moses  the  religion  of  Jehovah.  It  was  not  the 
religion  of  their  ancestors,  but  entirely  new  to  them.  A  slow 
migration  carried  them  into  Gilead  and  the  adjoining  districts, 
the  Judaic  clan  alone  probably  wandering  northward,  with  the 
Kenites  and  the  Arabic  Calebites,  into  the  region  west  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  When  these  migrations  took  place,  and  how  long 
they  lasted,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  In  Gilead  the  nomads, 
hemmed  in  between  the  Jordan  and  the  desert,  by  the  kindred 
Moabites  and  Ammonites  on  the  south,  and  by  Aramaic  tribes 
on  the  north,  gradually  turned  tillers  of  the  soil,  built  cities  — 
Mahanaim,  Succoth,  Jabesh,  Penuel,  etc.  —  and  grew  too  popu- 
lous for  their  territory.  The  stories  of  the  conquest  and  distri- 


ANCIENT    ISRAEL  147 

bution  of  the  country  by  Moses,  of  the  Amorite  Sihon,  of  Balak, 
and  Balaam  are  fictions. 

As  the  Midianites  and  Amalekites  did  in  later  times,  the 
Israelites,  in  their  nomadic  state,  must  have  made  frequent  plun- 
dering incursions  into  Western  Palestine,  the  many  fords  of  the 
upper  Jordan  offering  easy  opportunities  for  crossing.  Peace- 
able transmigrations  came  afterward,  the  Israelites  wedging 
themselves  in  between  Canaanitish  settlements,  steadily  gaining 
ground,  and  gradually  absorbing  the  neighboring  population. 
The  whole  history,  in  its  more  authentic  features,  clearly  shows 
that  there  was  no  sudden  conquest  or  invasion,  no  extermination 
of  the  natives,  no  deadly  feud  between  them  and  the  Israelites. 
The  Hebrews,  or  Transjordanians,  lived  mostly  in  peace  with 
the  kindred  Canaanites  during  the  time  which  is  generally, 
though  erroneously,  designated  as  the  period  of  the  judges  — 
that  is,  before  the  union  of  all  the  tribes  was  effected  under  the 
monarchy.  The  figure  of  the  great  conqueror,  Joshua,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  the  production  of  a  late  age.  That  no  general  con- 
quest took  place,  and  consequently  no  division  of  the  conquered 
country,  is  shown  by  the  earlier  relation  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Judges,  according  to  which  the  separate  tribes  attempted  sepa- 
rate conquests.  That  chapter,  now  falsely  attached,  as  a  con- 
tinuation, to  the  book  of  Joshua  by  the  words  "  After  the  death 
of  Joshua,"  is  evidently  an  extract  from  an  extensive  narrative, 
running  parallel  with  that  book  and  refuting  it,  which  may  have 
begun  with  "  After  the  death  of  Moses  "  or  "  After  the  crossing 
of  the  Jordan."  The  warlike  exploits  spoken  of  in  the  earlier 
relation  are,  however,  also  far  from  being  contemporaneous  or 
authentic  history.  No  such  exploits,  no  such  simultaneous  move- 
ments, ever  took  place.  The  Canaanites  generally  held  their 
cities,  plains,  and  valleys,  and  here  and  there  also  a  plateau  or 
mountain;  the  Israelites  mostly  occupied  first  the  intervening 
forest  lands,  which  they  cleared.  Their  peaceful  advance  did 
not  exclude  exceptional  conquests  with  the  sword,  sudden  in- 
roads from  beyond  the  Jordan,  surprises  and  sacks.  But  these 
rarely  effected  permanent  results.  A  part  of  the  tribe  of  Dan 
succeeded  in  capturing  an  isolated  town,  Laish,  in  the  extreme 
north,  and  establishing  themselves  there;  Levi  and  Simeon 
treacherously  surprised  the  Bene-Hamor  of  Shechem,  but  were 


148  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

driven  away  and  scattered  by  the  Canaanites,  and  Israel,  instead 
of  helping,  execrated  their  treachery. 

Israel  was  the  first  Transjordanic  Hebrew  clan  which  gained 
possessions  west  of  the  river.  Clan  after  clan  followed.  Living 
among  the  Canaanites,  they  partly  blended  with  them.  Inter- 
marriages prevailed.  The  sacred  places  of  Canaan  became 
sanctuaries  of  Israel.  In  all  other  matters  of  culture  the  Israel- 
ites learned  from  the  cities  of  Canaan;  in  the  worship  of  Je- 
hovah they  remained  faithful  to  their  own  traditions  and  cus- 
toms. Inferior  in  the  arts  of  industry,  they  were  superior  to 
their  neighbors  in  religious  conceptions  and  ethical  spirit.  This 
superiority  decided  the  product  of  international  blending  in 
favor  of  Israel.  The  Israelitish  element  began  to  predominate. 
Moral  leadership  led  to  material  rule.  The  rural  districts  were 
won  first;  the  towns  much  later,  partly  by  Israelitish  intrusion 
and  peaceful  commingling,  and  partly  by  treaty  and  conquest. 
Severe  contests  for  possession  and  sharpened  religious  antago- 
nism finally  created  permanent  animosities,  and  the  Israelite 
looked  down  upon  the  Canaanite  as  vile  and  fit  only  to  be  a  serf 
to  the  Sons  of  Shem.  And  yet  many  an  Israelitish  gens  had 
more  Canaanitish  blood  in  it  than  Shemitic.  The  absorption 
of  much  of  the  native  element  so  strengthened  some  of  the  clans, 
especially  those  which  obtained  much  clearable  land,  that  they 
grew  into  separate  tribes.  A  regular  division  of  the  people  into 
twelve  tribes,  however,  never  existed.  The  country  was  never 
distributed,  nor  did  the  Israelites  ever  possess  the  whole  of  it. 

The  warlike  tribe  of  Gad  was  powerful  in  the  land  east  of 
the  Jordan,  and,  west  of  the  river,  in  the  earliest  times,  the  cen- 
tral tribe  of  Joseph.  The  latter,  after  extending  its  possessions 
in  a  southerly  direction,  was  divided  into  Benjamin,  Manasseh, 
and  Ephraim.  The  tribe  of  Judah,  in  the  south,  arose  much 
later,  forming  itself  out  of  Israelitish,  Edomitish,  Canaanitish, 
and  Arabic  elements.  Enveloped  by  it  were  the  remnants  of 
Simeon,  which,  after  the  discomfiture  at  Shechem,  never  rose  to 
the  dignity  of  a  tribe.  The  dispersion  of  Levi  was  more  com- 
plete still,  but  its  boasting  of  Moses  as  its  member  united  its 
families  into  a  kind  of  priestly  caste,  to  whom  the  managing 
of  the  sanctuaries  was  generally  intrusted.  The  priesthood  was 
not  derived  originally  from  Aaron,  who  is  unknown  to  the 


ANCIENT   ISKAEL  149 

earlier  traditions,  but  from  Moses,  whose  descendants  we  find 
figuring  as  priests  at  the  northern  sanctuary  of  the  Danites. 
Reuben  never  had  any  political  significance,  almost  disappearing 
between  Gad  and  the  powerful  state  of  Moab,  its  constant  enemy. 
Issachar,  Zebulun,  Naphtali,  and  Asher,  in  the  north,  formed 
a  group  of  tribes  living  in  small  clans,  closely  surrounded  by  the 
Canaanitish  natives,  whom  they  were  unable  to  assimilate  or  to 
conquer.  At  one  time  only  (during  the  struggle  with  Sisera) 
Zebulun  and  Naphtali  appear  conspicuous  in  Israelitish  his- 
tory; Issachar  and  Asher  never  acted  a  noticeable  part  in  it. 
That  portion  of  Dan  which  remained  between  Judah  and  the 
Philistines  was  almost  as  powerless  as  Reuben  between  Gad  and 
Moab.  The  extermination  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  is  unhis- 
torical.  The  chronology  of  the  pre-monarchical  times  is  a  sys- 
tematic creation  of  late  redactors,  and  entirely  valueless.  The 
first  attempt  at  founding  a  royalty  more  comprehensive  than  clan 
chief  ship  was  made  by  the  house  of  Jerubbaal  in  Manasseh.  It 
proved  a  failure,  though  based  on  Gideon's  deserts  as  deliverer 
from  Midian.  The  greater  merits  of  Saul  as  deliverer  from  a 
more  general  and  more  lasting  oppression  led  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Benjamite  throne,  and  to  the  union  of  the  tribes. 
Samuel  —  who,  like  Eli,  was  a  priest,  and  not  a  judge  —  pro- 
moted, instead  of  opposing,  this  transition  from  tribal  anarchy 
to  monarchical  unity.  With  it  real  Israelitish  history  begins. 

We  have  made  no  attempt  to  acquaint  our  readers  with  any 
of  the  critical  processes  which  have  led  to  the  construction  of 
the  foregoing  scheme  of  the  earliest  history  of  Israel.  Those 
familiar  to  a  degree  with  Biblical  inquiry  in  its  recent  stages, 
even  if  as  yet  ignorant  of  the  advances  made  on  the  basis  of  the 
Graf  and  Kuenen  theory,  which  has  completely  changed  the 
relative  value  of  the  main  Old-Testament  narratives,  will  neither 
be  surprised  by  the  results  stated  nor  ask  for  explanations,  which 
must  needs  transcend  the  bounds  of  a  review  in  a  journal  like 
this.  Readers  who  know  only  their  Bible  and  apologetic  com- 
mentaries, and  perhaps  an  apologetic  Bible  dictionary,  will,  we 
have  no  doubt,  be  amazed  at  statements  so  often  flagrantly  at 
variance  with  the  best-remembered  texts  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
not  a  little  inclined  to  attribute  some  of  the  assertions  to  defec- 
tive knowledge,  wrong  judgment,  or  evil  propensity  on  the  part 


150  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

of  the  critical  innovators.  Such,  suspicions  we  are  unable  to 
disarm  here  by  evidences  to  the  contrary,  but  we  owe  our  general 
public  the  assurance  that  the  work  itself  completely  refutes 
them.  Never  has  the  minute  examination  and  dissection  of 
historical  tradition  been  carried  out  with  more  painstaking 
earnestness,  sounder  knowledge,  and  greater  freedom  from  reli- 
gious or  anti-religious  prepossessions,  than  in  the  histories  of 
Wellhausen  and  Stade.  In  the  work  of  the  latter  author,  which 
in  its  analysis  of  the  traditional  accounts  is  firmly  grounded  on 
the  writings  of  the  former,  the  destructive  analytical  labor  is 
so  convincingly  justified  by  intrinsic  evidence  from  the  respec- 
tive texts  —  the  Hebrew  as  well  as  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint 
—  that  only  he  who  shuts  his  eyes  to  all  evidence  conflicting 
with  cherished  notions  can  gainsay  it.  Of  course,  we  are  far 
from  saying  that  no  point  of  detail  can  be  contested.  The  con- 
structive labor  of  the  author,  in  which  more  originality  is 
evinced,  is  naturally  based  in  part  on  conjecture,  and  his  con- 
jectural facts  are,  we  confess,  often  propounded  with  too  much 
positiveness.  It  is,  perhaps,  owing  to  the  frequency  of  instances 
in  which  hypothesis  must  do  duty  for  knowledge  —  a  fre- 
quency demanding  a  reiteration  of  acknowledged  doubt  too 
tedious  to  carry  out  —  that  much  appears  presented  with  an 
assurance  not  warranted  by  the  saved  remnant  of  dissected  tra- 
dition. The  plausibility  of  the  facts  or  conditions  construc- 
tively elicited  here  from  a  mass  of  conflicting  testimony  is  gen- 
erally very  strong,  though  a  most  plausible  guess  but  too  often 
proves  a  mistaken  guese  when  verification  is  possible. 

—  Nation,  March  10  and  17,  1887. 

KENAN'S  "HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL"* 

In  order  to  complete  the  "  History  of  the  Origins  of  Christi- 
anity," which  he  initiated  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  with  his 
"Vie  de  Jesus,"  and  continued  in  "Lea  Apotres,"  "Saint- 
Paul,"  "  L'Antechrist,"  "  Les  Evangiles,"  "  L'Eglise  Chreti- 
enne,"  and  "  Marc-Aurele,"  M.  Renan  goes  back  to  the  early 
history  of  the  nation  to  which  the  founders  of  the  Christian 

1  Histoire  du  Peuple  d'lsrael.  Par  Ernest  Renan,  membre  de  1'Institut, 
professeur  au  College  de  France.  Vol.  I. 


KENAN'S    "HISTORY   OF  ISRAEL"          151 

religion  belonged,  tracing  the  origins  to  their  remote  springs, 
"  the  great  prophets  who  introduced  morality  into  religion  about 
850  years  before  Jesus  Christ."  But  then,  "  prophetism  itself 
has  its  root  in  the  antique  ideal  of  patriarchal  life,  an  ideal 
created  partly  by  fancy,  but  which  had  been  a  reality  in  a  re- 
mote part  of  the  Israelitish  tribe."  Consequently  Renan  must 
begin  the  beginnings  with  the  history  of  Hebrew  patriarchal 
times.  But  is  there  such  a  history?  Have  any  records  of  it 
been  preserved  ?  Are  the  Biblical  Abraham,  Jacob,  Joseph,  his- 
torical personalities?  M.  Renan  has  not  the  least  hesitation 
in  answering  these  questions  with  a  bold  negative.  Abraham  ia 
a  transformed  recollection  of  a  mythical  Babylonian  King  — 
the  good  Orham,  or  "  father  Orham,"  Ab-Orham.  Jacob  and 
Joseph  are  abridged  names  of  nomad  clans,  Jacob-El  and  Joseph- 
El,  devoted  to  the  worship  of  El,  like  Ishma-El  and  other 
Arab  Elites.  The  stories  told  about  them  in  Genesis  are  child- 
ish tales,  full  of  miraculous  traits,  which  readers  of  our  time 
cannot  but  find  absurd  in  the  highest  degree.  Yet  such  is  the 
vast  learning,  Biblical  and  Semitic  in  general,  at  the  disposal 
of  our  writer,  and  such  the  magic  power  of  his  poetic  fancy 
and  descriptive  diction,  that  he  can  venture  to  reconstruct 
Israel's  earliest  history,  partly  out  of  general  observations  on 
Arab  nomad  life  and  primitive  institutions,  and  partly  out  of 
scanty  historical  threads  woven  by  the  ancient  Hebrews  into 
their  myths  and  tales. 

As  we  remarked  on  a  much  earlier  occasion  (see  Nation,  No. 
213),  "  M.  Renan,  without  any  qualification,  rejects  as  incredi- 
ble everything  supernatural;  but  the  shadows  that  accompany 
the  delineations  of  supernatural  things  he  saves,  and  —  quite 
as  artfully  as  artistically  —  works  them  into  new  images.  His 
new  images  are  often  excellent  imitations  of  the  sacred  ones 
he  tears ;  but  while  orthodoxy  must  spurn  them  as  devoid  of  all 
sacred  substance,  mere  unimpassioned  criticism,  too,  can  see  in 
them  little  more  than  shadows."  Thus  he  created  his  Jesus  and 
his  Apostles,  and  painted  their  Galilee  and  the  cradle-time  of 
Christianity,  and  thus  he  reconstructs  and  paints,  with  admir- 
able skill,  Israel  in  his  infancy  and  childhood.  We  use  this 
personal  (and  Scriptural)  form  of  expression,  for  under  the 
poetic  pencil  of  our  author  the  nation  becomes  a  hero,  and  its 


152  MICHAEL   HEILPEIN 

history  a  biographical  epic.  He  follows  Israel  in  his  wander- 
ings —  as  a  child  —  from  Arabia,  along  the  western  banks  of 
the  Euphrates,  to  Padan-Aram,  to  Canaan,  into  Egypt.  For 
this  period  of  his  hero's  life  he  has  nothing  but  fond  sympathy. 
Israel  walks,  or  might  have  walked,  in  perfect  simplicity  and 
innocence;  his  God,  then,  was  the  homeless  nomad's  El,  or 
Elohim,  a  benevolent,  impartially  just,  unnational,  universal 
god.  The  pictures  of  this  life,  of  this  faith,  are  impressive  and 
beguiling  from  apparent  naturalness  of  delineation  and  color- 
ing. And  everything  is  chastely  done,  almost  to  the  exclusion 
of  ornamentation,  which  saves  the  idyllically  sublime  from  be- 
coming ridiculous.  Nor  is  the  necessary  support  from  varied 
stores  of  antiquarian  and  Oriental  lore  wanting  to  the  tableau. 
The  reader  must  not  hastily  form  the  conclusion  that  M. 
Renan's  epopee  of  Israel  will  be  as  unmixed  in  features  as 
that  of  Jesus  or  St.  Paul.  Far  from  it.  His  Israel  will  be- 
come a  nation  in  Egypt,  and  "  alas !  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world  no  amiable  nation  has  yet  been  seen."  Elohim  will  be 
exchanged  for  Yahveh  (Jehovah),  a  special  national  god,  a  god- 
protector  of  Israel.  The  national  idea  will  demand  a  god  caring 
only  for  his  nation,  to  the  detriment,  the  abasement,  the  woe, 
of  all  its  opponents  and  rivals.  The  theology  of  Israel,  in 
Shiloh  and  Shechem,  Jerusalem  and  Samaria,  will  be  as  black 
(the  author  does  not  spare  the  color)  as  it  was  pure  and  amiable 
under  the  starry  skies  and  in  the  healthy  air  of  the  desert.  The 
Jehovah  of  the  time  of  the  judges  and  early  kings  is  not  just 
and  kind  like  El,  "  the  Elyon  or  the  Shaddai  of  the  patriarchs." 
He  is  "  shockingly  partial "  to  Israel,  "  frightfully  hard  "  to 
other  nations.  "  II  tue,  il  ment,  il  trompe,  il  vole  pour  le  plus 
grand  bien  d'Israel."  Fortunately  for  the  world,  the  develop- 
ment of  Hebrew  theology  does  not  end  there.  "  It  will  be  the 
work  of  the  prophets  "  —  of  the  ninth  century  B.  c.,  and  of 
their  successors  —  "to  recreate  the  Elohism  of  old  by  dint  of 
reflection,"  to  perfect  it,  to  bring  their  people  back  to  it,  to 
make  it  the  perennial  stream  from  which  all  nations  will  finally 
draw  waters  of  bliss.  "  Elohim  is  the  universal  God,  the  God 
of  mankind.  In  reality,  it  is  to  Elohim,  not  to  Yahveh,  that 
the  world  has  been  converted.  The  world  has  become  theistic 
—  that  is,  Elohistic,  not  Yahvistic.  It  has  forgotten  how  Yah- 


KENAN'S    "HISTORY   OF   ISRAEL"         153 

veh's  name  was  pronounced ;  every  one,  to  eternity,  will  furnish 
it  with  vowels  as  he  fancies.  Neither  Christianity  nor  Islam 
knows  Yahveh."  This  is,  in  fact,  the  keynote  of  the  volume. 

These  are  surely  radical  notions  for  an  historian  of  the  chosen 
people,  a  student  of  the  origins  of  Christianity,  who  began  his 
work,  and  continues  it,  with  a  kind  of  religious  ardor.  But 
radical  and  bold  as  all  this  is,  the  history,  as  such,  must  be 
pronounced  far  from  destructively  critical  compared  with  re- 
cent German  works  on  the  same  subject.  Wellhausen,  in  his 
well-known  sketch  of  the  history  of  Israel  (published  in  the 
"Britannica")  wastes  not  a  paragraph  on  the  patriarchal  period 
—  to  which  our  author  devotes  150  pages  —  evidently  deeming 
all  the  traditions  concerning  it  completely  valueless  as  a  sub- 
stratum for  history.  Stade,  in  his  extensive  work  (see  Nation, 
~Nos.  1132  and  1133),  barely  alludes  to  them  in  a  few  lines, 
distinctly  declaring :  "  Irgend  eine  historische  Gewissheit  ist  bei 
dem  bruchstiickartigen  dieser  Ueberlieferungen  und  ihrer  durch- 
gangigen  Versetzung  mit  mythologischen  Elementen  nicht  zu 
gewinnen."  He  not  only  ignores  all  that  is  told  about  the 
migrations  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  to  Haran  through  Canaan, 
but  also  the  sojourn  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt,  and  their  march 
under  the  lead  of  Moses  to  Sinai,  and  thence  to  Gilead.  M. 
Renan  has  chapters  on  "  The  Beni-Israel  in  Egypt,"  on 
"  Egypt's  Influence  on  Israel,"  on  "  Israel's  Exodus,"  on 
"  Israel  in  the  Desert  of  Pharan,"  on  "  Sinai,"  and  on  "  The 
March  toward  Canaan,"  devoting  much  learning,  some  original 
criticism,  and  animated  diction  to  particulars  which  the  more 
consistent  German  critics  reject  as  completely  fictitious. 

M.  Renan's  inconsistency  in  rejecting  the  bulk  of  the  Penta- 
teuchal  narratives  —  all  that  has  real  historical  importance  — 
as  legendary  and  rather  idle  tradition,  and  picking  out  some 
few  slender  threads,  presumed  to  be  of  older  texture,  to  weave 
them  into  a  fanciful  work  of  historical  reconstruction,  is  fla- 
grant. He  knows  no  Joseph  (barring  the  clan  Joseph-El),  no 
clearly  historical  Moses  —  "  quoique  son  existence  soit  tres  pro- 
bable "  —  no  Aaron,  no  Levites,  and  doubts  the  existence  of  a 
Joshua ;  and  yet  he  enters  upon  speculations  on  the  route  taken 
by  the  Israelites  at  the  exodus  from  Egypt,  imagines  a  substitute 
for  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea,  speaks  of  Marah,  Elim,  Rephi- 


154  MICHAEL   HEILPRIK 

dim,  Meribah,  etc.,  and  introduces  Sinai  in  the  highest  strains 
of  descriptive  rhetoric.  When  we  examine  his  fascinating  nar- 
ratives, we  find  them  hollow.  Israel  is  said  to  have  become  a 
people  in  Egypt —  "  Israel  n'est  plus  une  tribu,  c'est  deja  une 
nation  "  —  but  a  little  brackish  water,  sweetened  by  the  in- 
fusion of  "  certains  branchages,"  keeps  up  this  people  at  Marah, 
and  seventy  palm  trees  and  some  tamarisks  give  it  shade  at 
Elim.  Of  course,  M.  Renan  reduces  the  millions  of  the  fugitive 
Israelites  to  a  comparatively  very  small  number,  and  their  forty 
years'  wandering  in  the  desert  to  a  very  rapid  march  through  it 
—  though  with  a  senseless  deviation  "  toward  the  awful  wilder- 
ness "  of  Sinai ;  but  in  order  to  explain  away  an  unavoidable 
residue  of  the  miraculous,  he  must  still  resort  to  remarks  like 
the  following :  "  The  fugitives  might  have  taken  along  grain 
and  provisions  from  Egypt.  By  means  of  the  precious  things 
which  they  had  appropriated  to  themselves,  if  the  narratives 
be  credible,  they  could  have  procured  something  from  the 
Ishmaelitish  or  Midianitish  merchants,  or  form  a  herd  for  them- 
selves. Possibly  the  [Sinaitic]  Peninsula  was  not  so  denuded 
three  thousand  years  ago  as  it  is  at  present."  "  Might,"  "  if," 
and  "  possibly "  are  poor  substitutes  for  the  wand  of  Moses, 
a  surfeit  of  quails,  and  plenty  of  manna  from  heaven. 

The  fact  is,  M.  Renan  is  a  much  more  radical  unbeliever  now 
than  he  was  when  he  wrote  his  "  Vie  de  Jesus,"  and  he  is  still 
as  Bible-loving,  imaginative,  and  artistically  ambitious  as  he 
was  then.  Purposing  to  write  a  history  of  Israel  without  the 
least  admixture  of  the  supernatural,  he  cannot  resign  himself  to 
presenting  it  incomplete,  with  gaps,  and  devoid  of  its  exceptional 
embellishments.  A  disciple  of  the  prophets  and  Bossuet,  a 
critical  follower  of  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen,  and  always  poeti- 
cal, he  turns  what  he  cannot  accept  as  a  sacred  account  and  is  un- 
willing to  reject  as  an  historical  romance,  into  a  romantic  his- 
tory. He  begins  with  dissecting  legend,  and  ends  with  reha- 
bilitating it,  forgetting  his  own  maxim,  "  II  y  a  du  danger  a 
chercher  trop  d'histoire  dans  de  vieux  reves  ou  les  spectres  no 
se  distinguent  pas  des  hommes."  From  the  scanty  footprints 
of  the  infant  Israel  —  and  to  him  we  must  limit  our  remarks 
here  —  a  whole  image  of  him  is  drawn,  with  the  magic  help  of 
Semitic  philology,  Arabian  archaeology,  Babylonian  and  Egyp- 


KENAN'S    "HISTORY    OF  ISRAEL"          155 

tian  lore,  and  philosophy  and  poetry.  The  interspersed  re- 
marks, learned  or  other  —  partly  drawn  from  the  author's 
numerous  previous  works  and  dissertations  —  are  generally  sug- 
gestive and  seductively  plausible.  The  critical  details  may  be 
too  numerous  for  the  general  public,  but  they  enhance  the  value 
of  the  book  for  students.  Some  of  the  generalizations,  whether 
sound  or  specious  and  glittering,  are  most  forcibly  presented. 
The  following  extract  is,  in  more  than  one  way,  characteristic 
of  the  work : 

"  Far  from  advancing  the  religious  development  of  Israel,  Egypt 
only  strewed  obstacles  and  perils  upon  the  road  which  God's  people 
had  to  wander  over.  Egypt  contributed  the  '  golden  calf,'  that 
eternal  stumbling-block  of  the  multitude ;  the  brazen  serpent,  which 
the  puritans  detested ;  the  lying  oracles  [TJrim  and  Tummim]  ;  the 
Levite  [' ark- tender'],  who  became  Israel's  leprosy;  perhaps  also 
circumcision,  the  people's  greatest  mistake,  which  for  a  time  threat- 
ened to  defeat  its  destiny.  Excepting  the  ark,  Egypt  introduced 
into  Israel  only  perturbing  elements,  which  had  to  be  eliminated, 
sometimes  not  without  a  crisis.  It  was  not  thus  with  the  notions 
borrowed  from  Chaldea.  These  were  all  fruitful,  and,  excepting 
perhaps  the  unpronounceable  name  [of  the  Divinity],  have  remained 
strong  supports  of  religion.  Believing  mankind  still  lives  on  them, 
it  owes  to  those  old  fables  a  prehistoric  antiquity  in  which  it  de- 
lights, and  a  cosmogony  of  which  it  is  proud.  Israel's  genius  did 
not  spring  from  Chaldea;  but  Chaldea  furnished  it  the  first  ten 
pages  of  the  book  which  has  made  its  unparalleled  success. 

Egypt,  on  the  contrary,  supplied  it  with  few  fruitful  germs. 
And  how  many  exquisite  things  it  killed !  The  beautiful  Jacobelite 
life  is  gone.  Those  noble  types  of  [patriarchal]  aristocrats,  proud, 
honorable,  and  religiously  serious,  have  passed  away.  Authority 
rests,  no  longer  in  the  hands  of  the  tribal  chief.  The  multitude 
has  now  a  voice,  and  this  voice  will  not  at  all  be  in  favor  of  religious 
puritanism.  The  Elohim-worship  will  soon  appear  dull.  On  every 
occasion  the  people  will  longingly  regret  the  vulgarities  of  Egypt, 
and,  in  order  to  satisfy  it,  it  will  be  necessary  to  erect  for  it  Apis 
figures  with  gilded  horns."  —  Nation,  January  5,  1888. 

The  last  article  from  Mr.  Heilprin's  pen  appeared  post- 
humously, in  the  Nation  of  May  31,  1888.  It  was  as  follows: 


156  MICHAEL   HEILPRIl? 


SAYCE'S  HIBBEBT 

The  Preface  to  this  work  —  one  of  its  author's  most  ex- 
tensive and  most  elaborate  productions  —  opens  with  "  a  word 
of  apology  ...  for  the  numerous  repetitions  in  the  following 
chapters,  which  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the  chapters  were  written 
and  delivered  in  the  form  of  lectures."  The  explanation  is  in- 
adequate, for  there  are  also  repetitions  in  single  divisions.  In 
the  first  chapter,  for  instance,  we  read  in  a  note  to  page  72 : 

"  The  name  of  Sin,  the  Moon-god,  is  met  with  in  an  Himyaritic 
inscription,  and  a  god  who  thus  found  his  way  to  southern  Arabia 
would  be  equally  likely  to  find  his  way  to  northern  Arabia  " ; 

and  again  (p.  50) : 

"  Sin  was  the  Babylonian  name  of  the  Moon-god.  We  learn  from 
a  Himyaritic  inscription  that  his  name  had  been  carried  into  south- 
ern Arabia,  and  there  is  therefore  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have 
been  imported  into  northern  Arabia  as  well." 

On  page  45: 

"  Josephos  has  preserved  an  extract  from  the  Egyptian  historian, 
Manetho.  ...  In  this  it  is  stated  that  the  earlier  name  of  Moses 
was  Osarsiph,  and  that  he  had  been  priest  of  Heliopolis,  or  On. 
Here  it  is  evident  that  Moses  and  Joseph  have  been  confounded  to- 
gether. The  name  of  Joseph,  who  married  the  daughter  of  the 
priest  of  On,  has  been  decomposed  into  two  elements,  the  first  of 
which  is  the  divine  name  Jeho,  and  this  has  been  changed  into  its 
supposed  Egyptian  equivalent,  Osar,  or  Osiris." 

And  in  a  note  to  page  51: 

"Manetho  (ap.  Joseph.  .  .  .)  states  that  the  original  name  of 
Moses  was  Osarsiph,  and  that  he  had  been  a  priest  of  Heliopolis,  or 
On.  Osar-siph  is  simply  Joseph,  Osar  or  Osiris  being  substituted 
for  Jeho  (Jo)  or  Jehovah.  Joseph,  it  will  be  remembered,  married 
the  daughter  of  the  priest  of  On." 

1  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  as  illustrated  by  the 
Religion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians.  By  A.  H.  Sayce.  [The  Hibbert  Lec- 
tures, 1887.] 


SAYCE'S   HIBBEKT   LECTUEES  157 

Besides,  another  word  of  apology  ought  to  have  been  inserted 
for  the  extensive  repetitions  in  these  "  Lectures  "  and  the  ap- 
pendices to  them  of  expositions  made  by  the  author  in  various 
previous  publications. 

We  are  far  from  inclined  to  make  it  appear  that  Professor 
Sayce  is  apt  to  repeat  himself  from  lack  of  fresh  matter  for 
new  lectures  or  dissertations.  His  learning  and  fame  shield  him 
against  such  an  imputation.  No  other  archseologist  is  more 
often  before  the  public  with  discoveries,  or  observations  on  dis- 
coveries, in  his  fields  of  study.  And  what  he  has  to  say  always 
betokens  ample  familiarity  with  the  latest  research,  and  often 
ingenuity.  What  we  object  to  in  him,  as  in  some  of  his  fellow- 
laborers  in  Assyriology,  is  an  excessive  propagandist  zeal  in  the 
interest  of  that  science,  from  which  springs  an  irresistible  habit 
of  inculcation.  In  the  "  Lectures  "  before  us,  everything  picked 
out  of  the  monumental  rubbish  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  which 
can  throw  the  least  flicker  of  light,  however  evanescent  and 
calculated  to  deceive,  upon  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  Babylon, 
Borsippa,  JSTipur,  Larsam,  Eridu,  etc.,  is  pressed  upon  the 
reader  with  as  much  persuasive  effort  as  if  the  salvation  of 
Christian  souls  depended  on  a  true  recognition  of  Ea,  Mullil, 
and  ISTinip,  Zarpanit,  Davkina,  and  Ninkigal,  and  their  like. 
And  a  very  large  part  of  what  is  thus  offered  as  knowledge 
of  a  high  order  —  though  not  without  reservations  as  to  entire 
accuracy,  made  in  view  of  daily  fresh  light  —  rests,  in  reality, 
on  a  frail  network  of  conjecture.  The  conjectures  are  surely  of 
interest  to  the  scholar,  and  worth  the  trouble  of  examination  — 
as  are  the  problems  of  Etruscan  or  Basque  etymology  —  but 
they  should  be  dealt  with  as  topics  for  the  learned,  without 
missionary  ardor.  The  subject,  on  the  whole,  is  not  worthy  of 
enthusiasm ;  for  Chaldean  mythology,  as  revealed  to  us  by  the 
pedant  scribblers  on  clay  tablets,  is  as  completely  devoid  of 
poetic  charm  and  primitive  naivete  as  the  Assyro-Babylonian 
history  of  the  monuments  is  devoid  of  all  traits  of  nobility  or 
naturalness. 

A  study  of  "  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Babylonians  "  is,  it 
is  true,  not  without  interest  in  regard  to  Biblical  inquiry.  It 
imparts  to  us,  for  instance,  information  about  Nebo,  Merodach, 
Bel,  Babylonian  divinities  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament  — 


158  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

the  first  in  Isaiah,  the  second  in  Jeremiah,  and  the  third  in  both. 
But  how  much  does  that  new  information  amount  to  ?  Before 
cuneiform  decipherments  had  been  made,  we  believed  with 
Gesenius  that  the  gods  mentioned  were  divine  embodiments  of 
the  planets  Mercury,  Mars,  and  Jupiter,  respectively.  Now 
we  have  learned  that  "  Kebo  must  have  once  been  an  elemental 
god,"  that  "  Babylonian  astronomy  made  him  the  presiding 
deity  of  the  planet  Mercury,  just  as  it  made  Merodach  the  pre- 
siding deity  of  Jupiter,"  and  that  "  the  Merodach  of  the  histori- 
cal age  "  was  "  the  great  Bel  or  Baal  of  Babylon,"  though  dif- 
ferent from  "  the  older  Bel  of  Nipur."  According  to  this, 
Gesenius  was  right  when  he  identified  Xebo  with  Mercury,  and 
Bel  with  Jupiter,  and  mistaken  in  regard  to  Merodach,  in  not 
identifying  him  with  the  great  Bel  of  Babylon,  but  deriving  his 
name,  which,  in  Jeremiah  (1,  2),  is  coupled  with  Bel's,  as 
!Kebo's  is  in  Isaiah  (xlvi,  1),  "a  stirpe  Mord,  Hort,  quse  et 
mortem  et  ccedem  significat,"  just  as  "  Mars,  Mavors,  et  mors 
ejusdem  originis  esse  videntur  "  ("  Thesaurus,"  s.  v.}.  And  the 
gain  is  a  different  meaning,  without  a  new  rendering,  for  a  line 
in  Jeremiah.  Whether  King  Merodach-Baladan  or  King  Evil- 
Merodach  bore  the  name  of  Jupiter  or  Mars,  is,  of  course, 
wholly  indifferent. 

Incomparably  more  important  to  Biblical  students  would  be 
the  remarks  concerning  the  names  of  Joseph,  Moses,  Saul, 
David,  and  Solomon,  if  they  were  sufficiently  substantiated. 
Collectively  they  would  greatly  impair  the  value  of  the  Scrip- 
tural narratives  of  all  early  Hebrew  history,  even  if  considered 
merely  as  reflections  of  popular  tradition.  The  story  of  Joseph 
would  cease  to  be  a  recollection  of  Egyptian  life,  and  become 
something  like  a  Babylonian  myth  —  because  it  appears  "  prob- 
able that  the  name  of  Joseph  was  originally  identical  with  the 
Babylonian  asipu"  which  may  be  the  designation  of  " the  god 
of  the  oracle,"  especially  as  among  the  names  of  the  cities  cap- 
tured by  Thothmes  III.,  in  Palestine,  there  is  one  which  is  read 
Iseph-el,  and  may  be  translated  "  Joseph,  the  God."  The  name 
Moses  would  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  Babylonian  masu,  "  the 
hero "  or  "  leader,"  "  an  epithet  applied  to  more  than  one 
divinity,"  but  "  in  a  peculiar  sense  associated  with  the  sun- 
god  "  —  the  character  which  represented  the  idea  of  hero  also 


SAYCE'S   HIBBEKT   LECTUKES  159 

representing  "  the  idea  of  a  '  collection  of  books/  .  .  .  '  a 
scribe  '  or  '  librarian/  "  terms  so  appropriate  to  the  lawgiver 
"  to  whom  Hebrew  tradition  referred  the  collection  of  its  earliest 
documents,  and  the  compilation  of  its  legal  code."  Besides, 
Moses  was  said  to  have  died  on  Mount  Nebo,  which  bore  the 
name  of  "  the  prophet-god  of  Babylon,  .  .  .  the  patron  of 
writing  and  literature,"  as  a  star  "  accounted  one  of  the  seven 
'heroes'  or  mdsu";  and  in  the  story  of  him  we  also  meet 
with  the  name  Sin,  which  was  that  of  another  Babylonian  god, 
and  "  Sinai  itself,"  which  Moses  reached  after  traversing  the 
wilderness  of  Sin,  "  can  scarcely  signify  anything  else  than 
the  mountain  sacred  to  the  Moon-god."  Saul  and  Solomon 
also  bear  the  names  of  Assyro-Babylonian  gods,  popularly  be- 
stowed on  them  instead  of  their  original  names.  For  the 
former,  "  the  one  asked  for"  (Heb.  Shaul),  the  people  wisely 
discovered  the  "  singularly  appropriate "  mythological  name 
Savul,  or  Sawul,  by  which  the  sun-god  was  known  at  Babylon, 
whence  if  "  Kehoboth  of  the  river"  designates  that  city,  the 
Edomites  also  received  a  King  Saul  (Gen.  xxxvi).  The  suc- 
cessor of  David  they  named  after  Sallimanu,  "  the  god  of 
peace,"  probably  a  fish-god,  "  honored  particularly  in  Assyria," 
in  a  list  of  whose  gods  "  mention  is  made  of  '  Sallimanu  the 
fish,  the  god  of  the  city  of  Temen-Sallim  (the  foundation 
of  peace)'"  —  so  strikingly  reminding  one  of  Solomon  of 
Jerusalem. 

The  argument  as  to  the  name  of  the  son  of  Jesse  is  fuller. 
Condensed,  it  runs  thus :  "  That  David's  first  name  was  Elhanan 
(or  Baal-hanan)  has  long  been  suspected,  since  it  is  stated  in 
one  passage  that  Elhanan,  the  son  of  a  Bethlehemite,  'slew 
Goliah  the  Gittite,  the  staff  of  whose  spear  was  like  a  weaver's 
beam/  while  the  feat  is  elsewhere  ascribed  to  David;  and  at 
the  head  of  the  thirty  mighty  men  of  David  is  placed  Elhanan, 
the  son  of  Dodo  of  Bethlehem,  where  we  should  probably  read 
'  Elhanan,  who  is  Dodo/  or  David."  This  name  is  identical 
with  that  of  the  Syrian  supreme  Baal,  or  Sun-god,  Hadad.  In 
an  abbreviated  form,  Shalmaneser  speaks  of  the  god  Dada  of 
Khalman,  or  Aleppo.  Be-dad,  or  Ben-dad,  "  the  son  of  Dad," 
was  the  father  of  the  Edomite,  Hadad.  David,  "  or  Dod,  as 
the  word  ought  to  be  read,"  or  Dodo  —  "  the  beloved  one  "  — 


160  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN     ^:; 

is  the  male  corresponding  to  the  Phoenician  goddess  and  presid- 
ing deity  of  Carthage,  called  Dido  by  the  writers  of  Rome.  And 
a  recent  thorough  examination  of  the  squeeze  of  the  Moabite 
stone  by  Professors  Socin  and  Smend,  which  resulted  in  some 
new  readings,  shows  that  King  Mesha  "tells  us  that  he  had 
carried  away  from  Ataroth  'the  arel  (or  altar)  of  Dodo  and 
dragged  it  before  Chemoth,'  and  from  Nebo  '  the  arels  (or 
altars)  of  Yahveh,'  which  he  likewise  '  dragged  before  Cha- 
moth.'  "  From  this  parallelism  "  it  is  quite  clear  "  "  that  the 
Israelites  of  the  northern  kingdom  worshipped  a  Dodo  or  Dod 
by  the  side  of  Yahveh,  or,  rather,  that  they  adored  the  supreme 
God  under  the  name  of  Dodo  as  well  as  under  that  of  Yahveh." 
It  is  even  "  suggested  that  Dod,  or  Dodo,  was  an  old  title  of 
the  supreme  God  in  the  Jebusite  Jerusalem,  and  that  hence 
Isaiah,  when  describing  Jerusalem  as  the  tower  of  the  vineyard 
the  Lord  had  planted  in  Israel,  calls  him  D6d-i,  '  my  beloved.'  " 
To  us  "  it  is  quite  clear  "  that  all  these  identifications,  how- 
ever specious  some  of  them  may  appear,  are  extravagantly 
forced.  Let  us  examine  them  briefly.  Professor  Sayce  himself 
evidently  knows  only  an  epithet  asipu,  but  no  such  name  of  a 
god,  for  a  mention  of  which  we  have  in  vain  searched  the  books 
(on  our  shelves)  of  Schrader,  Delitzsch,  Hommel,  George  Smith, 
Lenormant,  the  Oxford  professor  himself,  and  other  Assyriolo- 
gists.  The  city  name  read  by  our  author  Iseph-el,  and  translated 
"  Joseph,  the  God,"  is  read  by  Brugsch,  the  best  authority  on 
the  subject,  Ishpar,  and  identified  with  Micah's  Shaphir.  Nor 
have  we  been  able  to  discover  a  trace  of  a  god  M5su,  into  which 
the  epithet  masu  is  twisted,  or  of  Savul,  or  Sawul.  Now  we 
should  have  to  believe  that  the  Hebrews  of  those  olden  times 
were  wonderfully  learned  in  the  mythological  lore  of  Babylon 
and  Nineveh,  with  which,  as  the  Bible  and  the  monuments  con- 
currently show,  they  had  not  the  least  connection  in  those 
periods,  if  we  were  to  assume  that  such  recondite  and  obscure 
designations  could  have  any  popular  meaning  for  them,  as  sub- 
stitute names  for  their  heroes.  If  surnames  like  "  the  one  asked 
for,"  "  the  beloved  one,"  or  "  the  peaceable  "  were  assumed,  or 
bestowed  on  kings  —  as  the  Egyptian  Ptolemies  were  called 
Soter,  Philadelphus,  Euergetes,  etc.  —  the  purely  Hebrew  ap- 
pellations Shaul,  David  (or,  say  Dod),  Sh'lomoh,  were  excel- 


SAYCE'S   HIBBERT   LECTURES  161 

lently  chosen,  and  there  was  surely  no  need  for  the  names  of 
foreign  idols.  Nor  were  the  Israelites  in  the  habit  of  bestow- 
ing on  a  man  the  simple  name  of  a  divinity.  They  would  couple 
with  that  name  —  Jah  (or  Jehovah),  El,  Baal  —  a  verb  or  a 
common  noun,  thus:  Jedediah,  Jehovah's  favorite;  Elkanah, 
God-made;  Jerubbaal,  Baal-fighter.  The  list  of  the  thirty 
mighty  men  of  David  which  is  cited  to  prove  the  identity  of 
that  King's  name  with  Hadad  and  Dada,  contains  nine  such 
compound  names  —  Asael,  Elhanan,  Elika,  Eliahba,  Jonathan, 
Eliphalet,  Eliam,  Uriah  (besides  the  incidentally  mentioned 
Joab  and  Zeruiah)  —  and  no  name  of  a  foreign  god.  "  That 
David's  first  name  was  Elhanan  has  long  been  suspected,"  is 
true,  but  the  conjecture  has  just  as  long  been  considered  easily 
refutable  by  the  texts  (II.  Sam.  xxi  and  xxiii)  on  which  it  was 
grounded.  Thenius  ("Die  Biicher  Samuels")  showed  its  hol- 
lowness,  Wellhausen  ("  Der  Text  der  Biicher  Samuelis  ")  com- 
pletely ignored  it.  And  the  supposition  that  "the  Israelites 
of  the  northern  kingdom  worshipped  a  Dodo  or  Dod  "  —  not 
the  least  allusion  to  which  can  be  found  in  the  Bible  —  is 
extremely  far  from  being  made  "quite  clear"  by  Socin  and 
Smend's  examination  of  the  squeeze  of  Mesha's  inscription. 
These  professors  themselves,  in  their  joint  monograph  on  the 
subject  ("  Die  Inschrift  des  Konigs  Mesa  von  Moab  fur  aka- 
demische  Vorlesungen,"  1886),  say:  "Allerdings  kb'nnte  man 
in  Dodo  .  .  .  vielleicht  ebenso  gut  den  Namen  des  Stifters  wie 
den  einer  Gottheit  (Liebesgottheit  ?)  suchen."  That  is  to  say, 
Mesha's  "  Dodo  "  —  if  correctly  read  —  may  designate  a  man, 
and,  if  a  divinity,  a  goddess  of  love  —  the  Dido  of  the  Phoeni- 
cians. (What  an  appropriate  name  for  King  David ! )  Besides, 
the  arel  in  question  was  "  deutlich  Moabitischen  Ursprungs," 
carried  as  "  spolia  opima  "  to  the  border-town  Ataroth,  and  back 
to  Moab  by  Mesha.  On  so  frail  a  basis  is  reared  the  hypothesis 
that  the  Israelites  "  adored  the  supreme  God  under  the  name 
of  Dodo,  as  well  as  under  that  of  Yahveh,"  and  that  even  Isaiah 
spoke  of  the  Lord  as  Dod ! 

After  all  this  evidence  of  the  learned  author's  fondness  for 
bold  conjectures,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  his  faith 
in  the  extravagant  speculations  of  "the  brilliant  and  gifted 
Frangois  Lenormant,"  of  "  Dr.  Fritz  Hommel,  one  of  the  ablest 


162  MICHAEL   HEILPKItf 

of  the  younger  band  of  Assyrian  students,"  and  others,  as  to 
the  relations  of  Accado-Sumerian  to  Semitic  Babylonian  and 
of  Accadian  and  Sumerian  to  each  other,  has  not  been  shaken 
in  the  least  by  the  more  than  half  accomplished  desertion  of 
Friedrich  Delitzsch  to  the  side  of  Halevy,  who  knows  only 
Semitic-Babylonian  inscriptions.  We  will  conclude  our  notice 
of  the  "  Lectures  "  with  an  extract  showing  the  author's  offen- 
sive-defensive attitude  in  this  question: 

"  Far  be  it  from  me  to  disparage  .  .  .  the  work  which  has  been 
accomplished  by  Professor  Delitzsch  and  his  pupils.  We  owe  it  in 
great  measure  to  him  that  the  decipherment  of  Assyrian  stands  at 
its  present  level  of  scholarship.  .  .  .  But  the  Leipzig  school  has, 
with  one  or  two  striking  exceptions,  been  far  too  one-sided.  Archae- 
ology, history,  religion,  mythology,  have  been  neglected  in  favor  of 
the  almost  exclusive  study  of  words :  words,  too,  not  as  bound  to- 
gether in  the  sentences  of  untranslated  texts,  but  isolated  and  apart. 
.  .  .  This  excessive  devotion  to  vocabularies  has  been  too  often  ac- 
companied by  a  misconception  or  forgetfulness  of  the  real  nature 
of  the  'bilingual  lists.'  They  are  for  the  most  part  commentaries 
upon  older  texts,  made  we  know  not  when,  and  intended  to  explain 
the  meaning  of  rare  or  obsolete  words,  ideographs,  and  expressions. 
The  original  text  was  sometimes  in  Accado-Sumerian,  sometimes 
in  an  older  form  of  Semitic  Babylonian,  while  at  other  times  texts 
in  both  languages  were  commented  on  together  by  the  scribe.  In 
the  so-called  non-Semitic  column  of  the  '  bilingual  lists/  accord- 
ingly, we  must  expect  to  find  not  only  Accado-Sumerian,  but  also 
Semitic  words  as  well  as  ideographs,  which  may  be  either  of  Sume- 
rian or  of  Semitic  origin.  .  .  .  The  mythological  lists,  which  con- 
tain a  medley  of  divine  names  and  epithets  drawn  from  sources  of 
all  kinds  and  ages,  partly  Accado-Sumerian,  partly  Assyrian,  partly 
purely  ideographic,  partly  even  Elamite  or  Kossaean,  afford  a  good 
example  of  the  difficulty  and  danger  of  trusting  implicitly  to  such 
guides.  It  is  from  this  cause  that  Assyrian  has  been  taken  for  Acca- 
dian, Accadian  for  Assyrian;  while  ideographs  have  been  read  pho- 
netically, and  phonetic  characters  as  if  they  were  ideographs." 


VIII 
RECOLLECTIONS    OF   HUNGARY   AND   POLAND 

Many  hundred  pages  might  have  been  added  to  the  foregoing 
extracts  from  the  Nation  without  heightening  the  wonder  at 
such  varied  and  profound  scholarship.  Whatever  Mr.  Helprin 
wrote  was  characteristic  of  him.  His  ideal  truthfulness  was 
stamped  upon  every  line.  "  He  wished  to  be  absolutely  just," 
the  editors  of  the  Nation  wrote  of  him,  and  to  this  striving  for 
accuracy  he  was  quite  willing  to  sacrifice,  at  times,  a  literary 
effectiveness  well  within  his  grasp.  In  reviewing  a  book,  or 
writing  an  editorial  on  men  and  measures,  he  would  often 
qualify  an  opinion  just  expressed,  raise  a  doubt  concerning  seem- 
ing facts,  ask  a  series  of  questions  to  which  he  himself  had  no 
answer  —  all  of  which  occasionally  impaired  the  force  of  his 
diction ;  but  when  its  flow  was  unimpeded  it  carried  the  reader 
with  it  by  its  pure  literary  charm. 

Were  it  possible  to  follow  all  the  incidents  of  this  life,  from 
childhood  to  old  age,  we  should  have  before  us  a  picture  of  a 
singularly  harmonious  and  consistently  winning  personality. 
There  was  not  a  flaw  in  Michael  Heilprin's  character,  not  a 
single  trait  one  could  have  wished  different.  From  the  time  I 
first  met  him,  in  the  winter  of  1866,  to  the  day  of  his  death,  in 
May,  1888,  I  had  daily  opportunity  of  knowing  and  admiring 
the  loveliness  of  his  nature.  He  was  ever  stimulating  and  en- 
nobling to  all  who  came  in  contact  with  him. 

It  is  not  possible  to  construct,  from  the  scanty  material  at  my 
disposal,  even  if  supplemented  by  the  recollections  of  his  still 
surviving  daughters,  a  consecutive  story  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  life. 
He  sometimes  spoke,  in  his  last  years,  of  writing  down  his  rem- 
iniscences, but  it  would  not  have  been  easy  for  him  to  do  justice 
to  his  career.  His  modesty  in  speaking  of  his  own  achievements 
and  the  absence  of  letters  from  those,  in  various  countries,  who 
had  known  and  written  to  him,  would  I  think  have  interfered 
with  his  plan.  Though  of  methodical  and  orderly  habits,  he 


164:  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

rarely  preserved  a  letter,  and  for  the  last  twenty  years  kept  no 
record  of  what  he  wrote.  Only  a  few  of  his  articles  in  the 
Nation  (and  these  only  from  among  the  earliest)  were  found  in 
the  two  meagre  scrap  books  which  contain  some  of  his  literary 
records.  It  was  a  pleasant  surprise  to  me  to  find  a  thin  little 
volume  of  62  pages  bearing  on  the  cover  the  dedication  Kedves 
Nomnek.  Budavdr  viszavetele  napjdn  (To  my  dear  wife.  On 
the  anniversary  of  the  recapture  of  Buda),  which  contains  the 
poems  he  wrote  during  the  Hungarian  revolution,  including 
a  few  translations  and  adaptations  from  the  German  and 
French.  The  fly-leaf  shows  the  written  date  "  1849."  Other- 
wise there  is  no  indication  of  the  author  or  the  time  and  place 
of  publication.  In  all  likelihood  the  poems  were  surreptitiously 
printed,  and  it  would  have  been,  at  that  time,  a  matter  of  the 
greatest  personal  danger  to  disclose  the  name  of  the  author. 
One  of  these  poems,  "  Kaszahoz  ki  magyar,"  (To  the  Scythe, 
Hungarians!)  credited  to  "  H.  M."  (Heilprin  Mihaly,  as  the 
name  is  written  in  Hungarian)  is  found  in  an  anthology  of 
revolutionary  poems  in  the  possession  of  the  family,  likewise 
without  date  or  place  of  publication  or  name  of  editor.  The 
collection  bears  the  title  of  Hangok  a  Multbol  (Echoes  from 
the  Past). 

Hungarian  poetry  had  a  firm  place  in  Mr.  Heilprin's  heart. 
Perhaps  no  poet  in  any  language  was  as  dear  to  him  as  Alex- 
ander Petofi,  the  greatest  of  Magyar  bards,  some  of  whose  lyrics 
he  translated  into  English.  I  quote  two  of  these  translations, 
which  were  printed  in  Graham's  Magazine,  in  1857. 

MY  CABJB 

One  care  torments  my  heart  —  should  I 

One  day  in  bed,  on  cushions  die ! 

Die  drooping,  like  a  faded  flower, 

Whose  roots  the  gnawing  worms  devour ; 

Or  slow  consumed  in  growing  gloom, 

A  candle  left  in  empty  room ! 

Oh  God !   not  such  a  death  may  be, 

Not  such,  the  end  of  life  to  me ! 

I  'd  die  —  a  tree  that  lightnings  break, 

Or  tempests  wild,  when  forests  shake ; 


TRANSLATIONS   FKOM   PETOFI  165 

A  rock,  by  crushing  thunder's  might 

Dashed  to  the  vale  from  craggy  height. 

When  once  the  nations,  tired  to  bear, 

To  break  the  yoke  of  slavery  dare, 

And  rise  at  once  with  brandished  swords, 

And  banners  red,  and  with  these  words 

Upon  the  banners  all  unfurled : 

"  Freedom  forever  to  the  world !  " 

That  sound  from  east  to  western  ends  — 

And  tyranny  to  fight  descends, 

There  flow  my  blood 

In  battle  dread  — 

Fresh  out  of  my  exulting  breast. 

May  there  my  dying  voice  —  supprest 

By  weapons'  clink,  unheard  expire 

'Mid  trumpets'  sounds  and  cannons'  fire  — 

And  o'er  my  corse 

The  snorting  horse 

May  dashing  run  to  victory, 

And  leave  unburied,  trampled,  me. 

My  scattered  bones  they  '11  gather  there 

When  burial's  day  comes  grand  and  fair ; 

When  with  the  mournful  music's  sound, 

And  under  banners  furled  around, 

They  lay  in  one  grave,  side  by  side, 

AU  who  for  thee,  World's  Freedom!  died. 

MY  SONGS 

In  musing  thoughts  I  often  stray : 

I  dream  —  what  ?    I  could  hardly  say, 

And  thus  throughout  my  home  I  fly, 

All  o'er  the  earth  and  through  the  sky. 

The  little  songs  I  then  unroll 

Are  moonbeams  of  my  dreaming  soul. 

While  thus  I  rove  in  realms  of  air, 
I  ought  perhaps  for  wants  to  care, 
To  think  —  oh,  that 's  too  serious ! 
There  is  a  God  who  thinks  for  us. 
The  little  songs  I  then  enroll 
Are  butterflies  of  my  light  soul. 


166  MICHAEL   HEILPKIN 

Oh,  when  I  meet  a  maiden  fair, 
To  deeper  grave  must  sink  my  care ; 
In  maiden's  eyes  I  dive  as  far 
As  in  a  lake's  calm  depths  the  star. 
The  little  songs  I  then  unroll 
Are  roses  of  my  loving  soul. 

If  love  I  win,  I  drink  of  glee, 
If  not,  wine  must  my  comfort  be, 
And  where  a  glass  and  wine  I  find, 
Full-colored  mirth  comes  o'er  my  mind. 
The  little  songs  I  then  unroll 
Are  rainbows  of  my  tipsy  soul. 

While  glasses  fill  our  hands  around, 
The  nation's  hands  with  chains  are  bound; 
Well-clinking  glasses  charm  the  ear, 
But  sad  't  is  clanking  chains  to  hear. 
The  little  songs  I  then  unroll 
Are  clouds  of  my  regretful  soul. 

And  will  the  world  in  bonds  remain  ? 
Will  people  never  break  the  chain, 
But  wait  until,  through  heav'n,  it  must 
Drop  from  the  hand,  destroyed  by  rust  ? 
The  little  songs  I  then  unroll 
Are  lightnings  of  my  angry  soul. 

During  the  Revolution  Petofi  one  day  entered  Mr.  Heilprin's 
bookstore.  He  pointed  to  a  volume  of  his  songs,  and  laughingly 
asked  whether  the  book  was  selling  well.  The  poet's  wish  to 
die  on  the  battle-field,  and  lie  there  unknown,  was  literally  ful- 
filled. He  fought  in  the  battle  of  Segesvar  (Schassburg),  July 
31,  1849,  and  was  never  heard  of  afterwards.  It  is  thought 
that  he  fell  by  a  Cossack's  lance,  and  that  his  body,  mangled 
beyond  recognition,  was  buried  in  an  unknown  grave. 

Mr.  Heilprin  left  no  records  bearing  on  his  early  life  in 
Poland.  He  had  perfect  command  of  the  Polish  language, 
but  I  believe  never  published  anything  in  it  Though  he  loved 
to  speak  of  the  scenes  of  his  childhood,  of  the  woods  near  his 
native  town,  and,  occasionally,  of  some  favorite  book  he  read  in 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  HUNGARY  AND  POLAND  167 

his  young  days,  he  was  comparatively  reticent  concerning  his 
experiences  in  Poland.  Of  his  father,  whose  life  will  be 
sketched  at  the  close  of  this  volume,  he  always  spoke  in  terms 
of  veneration.  From  him  he  derived  his  first  scholarly  impulses. 
The  language  of  the  home  in  Poland  was  German  as  well  as 
Polish.  Latin  and  Greek  he  acquired  early,  though  the  study 
of  Hebrew  was  paramount  to  everything  else.  When  little  more 
than  a  child,  he  began  to  write  down  critical  remarks  on  certain 
passages  of  the  Old  Testament.  Of  the  value  of  these  random 
annotations,  partly  linguistic,  partly  historical,  I  shall  speak 
later  on.  He  accompanied  his  father  on  some  journeys  to 
Prussia  and  Austria,  in  the  course  of  which  he  came  in 
contact  with  interesting  persons.  He  repeatedly  saw,  among 
other  Hebraists,  the  great  rabbinical  critic  Rapoport.  Abra- 
ham Geiger,  the  distinguished  liberal  theologian,  he  met  later 
on,  as  he  did  the  eminent  botanist,  Pringsheim. 

Though  the  family  enjoyed  in  their  home  the  esteem  alike  of 
Christians  and  Jews,  the  political  conditions  of  Poland  rested 
heavily  on  them,  and  they  were  glad  to  breathe  the  freer  air  of 
Hungary,  to  which  country  they  emigrated  in  1842.  A  few  re- 
marks may  be  added  to  Mr.  Chadwick's  statements  concerning 
their  life  in  Hungary.  Michael  Heilprin's  speedily  acquired 
mastery  of  the  Hungarian  language  and  his  general  accomplish- 
ments procured  him  the  acquaintance  of  men  prominent  in  na- 
tional life.  Kossuth,  I  believe,  he  did  not  meet  until  after  the 
Revolution,  but  he  became  attached  to  Szemere,  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior  in  1848,  from  whom  he  accepted  a  place  in  the 
literary  bureau  of  that  department.  He  also  became  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  statesman  Csengery,  known  for  his  historical 
writings  and  his  translation  of  Macaulay's  History  of  England. 
After  the  struggles  of  1848  Mr.  Heilprin  thought  it  prudent  to 
leave  Miskolcz,  where  the  family  had  settled  on  coming  from 
Poland,  and  betake  himself  with  his  family  to  Pesth,  and  he 
was  present  with  them  at  the  siege  of  Buda,  in  the  spring  of 
1849.  The  final  collapse  of  the  revolutionary  movement  ren- 
dered his  stay  in  Hungary  insecure,  and  he  repaired,  in  1850, 
to  Paris,  where  he  spent  a  few  months,  troubled  by  his  failing 
eyesight  and  anxiety  for  his  family,  who  had  remained  in 
Hungary.  He  found,  however,  wholesome  diversion  in  rambles 


168 


MICHAEL   HEILPKIN 


along  the  Loire,  in  the  company  of  a  prominent  Hungarian 
refugee,  Mr.  Ludvigh,  whose  son  subsequently  became  much 
attached  to  the  Heilprin  family  in  New  York.  While  in 
France  he  formed  the  resolution  to  become  a  vegetarian,  to 
which  he  adhered  to  the  end  of  his  life. 


IX 

ME.    HEILPRIN'S   FIRST   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

Mr.  Chadwick's  sketch  omits  mention  of  Philadelphia,  as  the 
first  home  of  the  family  in  America.  They  arrived  in  that  city 
in  May,  1856.  Mr.  Heilprin  gained  there  a  precarious  liveli- 
hood by  teaching  until,  two  years  later,  he  secured  work  on 
Appleton's  Cyclopaedia.  His  interest  in  American  politics 
began  with  the  day  of  his  arrival  on  American  soil,  as  is 
shown  by  a  striking  incident  which  occurred  a  few  months 
after.  A  well-informed  writer,  in  an  essay  on  Mr.  Heilprin, 
published  in  the  Jewish  Exponent  of  October  27, 1899,  described 
this  incident  as  follows: 

"  Toward  the  end  of  the  fifties,  when  public  opinion  was  crys- 
tallizing on  the  impending  war  issue,  Philadelphia  was  the 
scene  of  a  conflict  whose  bitterness  can  better  be  imagined  than 
described.  Party  feelings  had  reached  the  boiling-point  when, 
one  evening,  Carpenter's  Hall  was  appropriated  for  the  use 
of  the  anti-slavery  Democrats.  The  speaker  on  this  occasion, 
all  enthusiastic,  was  convincing  his  audience  of  the  justice  of 
their  cause  when  he  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  the  hoots  and 
jeers  of  a  crowd  of  hoodlums  representing  the  '  Copperheads,' 
who  entirely  unobserved  had  entered  the  meeting.  Quick  as  a 
flash,  in  this  moment  of  uproar,  an  unknown  man  rose  from  one 
of  the  first  rows  in  the  audience.  Every  eye  was  upon  him.  In 
breathless  excitement  he  mounted  his  chair,  and  in  vigorous 
German,  reinforced  by  a  remarkable  eloquence,  delivered  such 
a  bitter  tirade  against  the  methods  of  the  opposition  as  to  make 
him  at  once  the  object  of  the  mob's  resentment.  He  was  imme- 
diately surrounded  .  .  .  and  was  about  to  be  rushed  bodily  out 
of  the  hall  when  Dr.  Edward  Morwitz  organized  his  friends 
upon  the  platform  .  .  .  and  succeeded  in  tearing  him  away 
from  the  clutches  of  the  angry  mob.  That  man,  that  hero  in 
the  conflict  for  truth  and  justice,  was  Michael  Heilprin." 


170  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Four  years  later,  in  a  burning  denunciation  of  the  pro-slavery 
arguments  of  a  well-known  Jewish  rabbi,  published  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  Mr.  Heilprin  showed  himself  as  fully  at  home 
in  the  intricacies  of  American  politics  as  in  biblical  lore.  Re- 
ferring to  his  antagonist's  preference  for  the  translation  "slave" 
of  the  Hebrew  word,  ebed,  instead  of  "  servant "  as  used  in 
the  English  version,  he  wrote : 

"  It  would  certainly  be  no  less  a  task  to  make  the  great  lights 
of  biblical  criticism  and  theology  agree  upon  a  harmonious  trans- 
lation of  it  in  all  passages,  than  to  bring  about  a  similar  harmony 
regarding  the  construction  of  the  United  States  Constitution  in 
all  its  parts,  between  Senators  Seward  and  Bigler,  Wade  and 
Iverson,  Sumner  and  Davis,  Wilson  and  Toombs,"  etc. 

Mr.  Heilprin  found  it  inconvenient  to  remain  in  Philadelphia, 
owing  to  his  work  on  the  Cyclopaedia,  and  the  family  moved  to 
Brooklyn  in  August,  1858. 

It  was  there  that  the  acquaintance  with  the  Manning  family 
ripened  into  the  warmest  friendship.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Manning 
had  long  cherished  the  greatest  admiration  for  Mr.  Heilprin. 
Mrs.  Manning,  who  was  during  the  war  prominently  connected 
with  the  Sanitary  Commission,  awakened  in  President  Lincoln 
a  desire  (as  she  related  it)  to  meet  her  "  remarkable  friend." 
In  Brooklyn,  as  later  on  in  New  York,  there  lived  quite  a 
number  of  Hungarian  patriots  of  the  year  1848,  who  found 
their  way  naturally  to  Mr.  Heilprin's  house.  The  members 
of  the  Kossuth  family,  who  had  found  a  refuge  in  America, 
his  sisters,  Mme.  Kossuth-Zulavsky,  and  Mme.  Ruttkay,  and 
their  children  were  often  welcome  guests  under  the  Heilprin 
roof,  and  the  friendship  lasted  until  and  beyond  Mme.  Rutt- 
kay's  final  return  to  Hungary.  From  Mme.  Ruttkay,  who, 
like  most  of  the  members  of  the  family,  had  something  of 
Kossuth's  fiery  eloquence,  Mr.  Heilprin  had  occasional  re- 
ports concerning  her  distinguished  brother.  Among  other  Hun- 
garians who  visited  the  house  was  Mr.  Zagonyi,  who  afterwards 
became  a  colonel  in  the  Union  army  and  achieved  distinction 
as  a  cavalry  officer  under  Fremont,  at  the  battle  of  Springfield. 
Mr.  Heilprin  met  also  Generals  Stahel  and  Asboth, 
both  Hungarians  by  birth,  and  knew  Ujhazy,  a  resident  of 
Texas,  who  bore  the  title  of  Governor,  from  having  been  in 


A   GARIBALDIAN   LEGION   IN   AMERICA    171 

command  of  one  of  the  Hungarian  fortresses  during  the 
Revolution. 

The  friendship  of  the  Heilprins  for  Mme.  Zulavsky,  who  was 
tenderly  cared  for  by  the  Mannings,  brightened  many  hours 
of  her  last  illness,  and  when  she  died  Mr.  Heilprin  spoke 
feelingly  at  her  grave  in  Greenwood  Cemetery,  Brooklyn,  July  1, 
1860. 

It  was  at  that  time,  in  July,  1860,  that  a  number  of  Hun- 
garian patriots  in  America,  among  them  Ladislas  Zulavski, 
organized  a  legion  to  join  Garibaldi  in  his  rising  against 
Sicily.  At  a  banquet  on  the  eve  of  their  departure  Mr.  Heil- 
prin bade  them  godspeed  in  a  stirring  poem,  three  stanzas  of 
which  read: 

And  when  the  roaring  tempest  shakes 
Your  vessel's  mast  and  rib  and  keel, 
Then  sing  ye  loud  through  storm  and  waves 
Your  Vb'rosmarty's  grand  "  Appeal "  1 
That  ocean's  waves,  reechoing, 
May  thunder  it  to  ev'ry  shore  — 
That  Arpad's  nation  is  not  dead, 
That  Hungary  will  live  once  more ! 

For  Europe's  Freedom  now  revives  — 
She  struggles  now  to  burst  her  tomb ; 
Behold  her  martyrs'  spectres  rise ! 
They  come  to  tell  the  despots'  doom. 
And  ancient  glories  are  renewed, 
And  Spartan,  Roman  deeds  are  done; 
Behold,  alive  the  sacred  band, 
Camillus,  and  Timoleon! 

'T  is  he,  't  is  he,  Timoleon ! 
His  galleys  boldly  part  the  waves  — 
The  Pasan  sounds,  the  tempest  yields  — 
Now  rise,  young  Dionysius'  slaves! 
The  west  cape  hails,  Panormus  shouts, 
At  .^Etna's  foot  Catania  shakes ; 
The  island's  tyrant  trembling  sits 
Upon  his  throne,  the  while  it  breaks. 


CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    THE   AMERICAN 
CYCLOPEDIA 

Mr.  Heilprin's  connection  with  the  Cyclopaedia,  begun  in 
1858,  lasted  until  its  completion,  at  the  end  of  1862.  In  addi- 
tion to  his  critical  revision  of  the  writings  of  others,  he  con- 
tributed a  vast  number  of  articles  himself.  I  find  among  his 
papers,  in  his  own  handwriting,  a  "  Partial  List  of  M.  Heil- 
prin's contributions  to  the  New  American  Cyclopaedia."  The 
list  is  as  follows : 

Greece  —  Epirus,  Macedonia,  Delphi,  Delos,  Laconia,  Messenia, 
Epaminondas,  Cleomenes,  Demetrius  Phalereus,  Demetrius  Polior- 
cetes,  Canaris,  Mavrocordato. 

Italy,  Roman  Empire  —  Etruria,  Genoa,  Coriolanus,  Catiline, 
Cassius,  Domitian,  Justinian,  Dictator,  Emperor,  Freedmen,  Fasti, 
Circus. 

France  —  Gaul,  Franks,  Merovingians,  Fronde,  Directory,  Fran- 
cis II.,  Crillon,  Gourgaud,  Louis  XVIII. 

Germany  —  Moravia,  Hohenstaufen,  Hapsburg,  Hohenzollern, 
Frederic  II.,  Louis  IV.,  Frederic  III.,  Maximilian  I.,  Leopold  I., 
Joseph  I.,  Charles  VII.,  Maria  Theresa,  Joseph  II.,  Leopold  II., 
Francis  II.,  Francis  Joseph  of  Austria,  Frederic  I.  of  Prussia, 
Frederic  William  II.,  Frederic  William  III.,  Frederic  William  IV., 
Frederic  III  of  Saxony,  Frederic  Augustus  I.,  Frederic  Augustus 
II.,  Frederic  I.  of  Wiirtemberg,  Kaunitz,  Gneisenau,  Gyulai. 

Holland  —  Maurice  of  Nassau. 

Hungary  —  Hungary  (including  language  and  literature),  Pan- 
nonia,  Military  Frontier,  Pesth,  Debreczin,  Hunyady,  Kossuth,  Gor- 
gey,  Klapka,  Guyon,  Kmety,  Perczel,  Kazinczky,  Kisfaludy,  Petofi, 
Csoma,  Kollar. 

Poland  —  Poland  (including  language  and  literature),  Lithu- 
ania, Galicia,  Cracow,  Casimir  the  Great,  John  Sobieski,  Chmiel- 
nicki,  Czarniecki,  Czartoryski,  Lelewel,  Chlopicki,  Chlapowski, 
Chrzanowski,  Dembinski,  Mickiewicz,  Mieroslawski. 


ARTICLES   IN   AMERICAN   CYCLOPAEDIA    173 

Russia  —  Cronstadt,  Kiev,  Dnieper,  Dniester,  Fedor  L,  Deme- 
trius, Catharine  I.,  Catharine  II.,  Elizabeth,  Constantine  Pavlovitch, 
Constantino  Nicolaevitch  Diebitsch,  Paskevitch,  Dolgoruki,  Demi- 
doff,  Mentchikoff,  Gallitzin,  Gortchakoff,  Karamsin,  Czar,  Cossacks. 

Servia  —  Czerny  George,  Obrenovitch,  Kara j  itch. 

Danubian  Principalities  —  Moldavia. 

Asia  —  Hebrews  (including  language  and  literature),  Judaaa, 
Chaldea,  Media,  Gilead,  Gaza,  Canticles,  Esdras,  Books  of,  Ezra, 
Esther,  Hillel,  (Maimonides)  Cyrus,  Darius,  Chosroes,  Genghis- 
Khan,  Hariri,  Lydia,  Lycia. 

Africa — Gush,  Elephantine,  Cyrensea,  Cyrene,  Ethiopia,  Ethi- 
opian Language,  Numidia,  Hamilcar,  Hasdrubal,  Hannibal,  Masi- 
nissa,  Genseric. 

Many  of  these  articles  were  retained,  wholly  or  in  part,  in 
the  subsequent  edition  of  the  Cyclopaedia. 

The  most  notable  of  these,  "  Hebrews,"  covers  twenty  pages 
of  the  Cyclopaedia,  It  is  a  brilliant  production,  and  as  an  epi- 
tome of  the  history  and  the  achievements  of  the  Jewish  race  can 
hardly  be  surpassed.  The  article  embodies  Mr.  Heilprin's  de- 
liberate judgment  in  choosing  for  mention  names  of  those  Jews 
who  most  worthily  illustrated  the  achievements  of  the  race,  and 
the  lists,  interspersed  throughout  the  article,  are  probably  more 
nearly  representative  than  any  others  that  have  ever  appeared  in 
any  encyclopaedia.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  article  was 
written  about  1859.  As  a  specimen  of  its  wealth  of  learning 
and  of  the  general  treatment  of  the  subject  I  quote  from  the 
article  the  following: 

"The  political  and  intellectual  condition  of  the  Jews  was 
worse  in  the  Byzantine  empire  and  in  the  feudal  states  which 
arose  on  the  ruins  of  the  western.  Deprived  of  most  civil  rights, 
they  were  now  and  then  bloodily  persecuted,  as  by  the  Franks 
and  Visigoths  in  the  6th  and  7th  centuries,  by  the  Byzantines 
in  the  8th,  when  many  of  them  fled  and  even  spread  their 
religion  among  the  Khazars  about  the  Caspian  sea,  and  again 
in  the  llth,  about  which  time  they  appear  in  Russia,  though 
only  for  a  short  time,  and  in  Hungary.  More  tolerable,  how- 
ever, was  their  situation  in  Italy,  Sicily,  and  Sardinia,  where 
they  often  found  protection  through  the  influence  of  the  popes. 
Bari  and  Otranto  became  the  principal  seats  of  Jewish  learning. 


174  MICHAEL   HEILPKIX 

The  renowned  Eleazer  ben  Kalir  and  other  writers  of  piyutim 
(liturgical  songs  in  Hebrew  rhymed  verse),  the  historian 
Josipon,  and  the  astronomer  Shabthay  Donolo,  flourished  in 
Italy  in  the  9th  and  10th  centuries,  and  the  lexicographer 
Nathan  in  the  llth.  From  Italy  science  spread  to  the  cities 
on  the  Rhine,  to  Lorraine  and  France.  In  the  llth  and  12th 
centuries  we  find  in  Germany  Simeon,  the  author  of  the  tal- 
mudical  Yalkut  ('  Gleaning  Bag '),  the  poet  Samuel  the  Pious, 
and  the  writer  of  travels  Petahiah ;  in  northern  France,  Gerson, 
surnamed  the  '  light  of  the  exiled/  the  liturgical  poet  Joseph 
Tob  Elem,  the  renowned  commentators  Solomon  Isaaki  and  his 
grandson  Solomon  ben  Meir,  and  the  authors  of  the  talmudical 
Tosafoth  ('  Additions '),  Isaac  ben  Asher,  Jacob  ben  Meir, 
&c,  Spain,  after  the  conquest  by  the  Saracens,  who  carried 
thither  culture,  science,  and  poetry,  was  destined  to  develop 
the  most  prosperous  and  flourishing  condition  which  the  Jews 
enjoyed  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Persecutions  became  rare  and  ex- 
ceptional. The  Jews  enjoyed  civil  rights  and  rose  to  high 
dignities  in  the  state  under  the  Moorish  princes,  and  were 
almost  as  well  treated  by  the  Christian  monarchs,  and  their 
culture  and  progress  in  science  not  only  kept  pace  with  their 
prosperity,  but  also  outlived  occasional  adversity.  In  the  10th 
century  we  see  there  the  lexicographer  Menahem,  the  astrono- 
mer Hassan,  and  the  rich,  liberal,  and  scientific  Hasdai,  the 
friend  and  physician  of  the  caliph  Abderrahman  III.,  at  Cor- 
dova; in  the  llth  the  talmudical  scholars  Samuel  Hallevi  and 
Isaac  Alfasi  (of  Fez),  the  grammarian  Abulwalid,  the  philos- 
opher David  Mokamez,  the  ethical  writer  Behay,  and  Solomon 
ben  Gabirol,  equally  celebrated  as  Hebrew  poet  and  Arabic 
philosopher;  in  the  12th  the  theologian  Abraham  ben  David, 
the  astronomer  and  geographer  Abraham  ben  Hiya,  the  poet 
Moses  ben  Ezra,  the  traveller  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  the  scientific 
poet  Jehudah  Hallevi,  whose  glowing  songs  rival  the  beauties 
and  purity  of  the  Psalms,  the  great  critic,  philosopher,  and 
poet  Aben  Ezra,  and  finally  Moses  Maimonides,  who  as  phil- 
osopher, as  well  as  writer  on  the  law,  by  far  surpassed  all  his 
contemporaries.  The  diffusion  of  science  among  the  Jews  now 
attained  its  height  in  Europe,  as  well  as  in  Egypt,  whither 
Maimonides  fled  after  a  persecution  at  Cordova  (1157),  and 


THE   HISTOKY   OF   THE   HEBREWS         175 

where  lie  and  his  son  Abraham  officiated  as  physicians  to  the 
court  of  the  sultan.  Spain  numbered  among  its  vast  number 
of  scholars  in  the  13th,  14th,  and  15th  centuries,  the  poets 
Charizi,  the  Hebrew  imitator  of  the  Arabian  Hariri,  and  Sahola ; 
the  astronomers  Aben  Sid,  the  author  of  the  Alfonsine  tables, 
leraeli,  and  Alhadev;  the  philosophical  theologians  Palquera, 
Lattef ,  Caspi,  Hasdai,  Albo,  and  Shemtob ;  the  celebrated  com- 
mentators Nahmanides,  Addereth,  Gerundi,  Behay,  Yomtob, 
and  Nissim;  the  cabalists  Todros,  Gecatilia,  Abelafia,  and  De 
Leon.  In  Provence  and  Languedoc,  where  high  schools  flour- 
ished in  Lunel,  Nimes,  Narbonne,  Montpellier,  and  Marseilles, 
from  the  12th  to  the  15th  century,  we  find  the  three  gram- 
marians Kimhi  and  their  follower  Ephodi;  the  poets  Ezobi, 
Jedaiah,  and  Calonymus;  the  commentators  Zerahiah  Hallevi, 
Abraham  ben  David,  and  Menahem  ben  Solomon;  the  philos- 
ophers Levi  ben  Abraham,  Levi  ben  Gerson,  and  Vidal;  the 
four  Tibbons,  all  translators  from  Arabic  into  Hebrew,  and  the 
lexicographer  Isaac  Nathan.  Italy  had  in  the  13th,  14th,  and 
15th  centuries  the  poets  Immanuel,  an  imitator  of  Dante,  Moses 
de  Kieti,  and  Messir  Leon;  the  talmudists  Trani  and  Colon; 
the  cabalist  Recanate;  the  astronomer  Immanuel;  various 
grammarians  and  translators  from  Arabic  and  Latin;  and 
finally  the  philosopher  Elias  del  Medigo.  Germany  had  in 
the  same  period  the  talmudists  Meir,  Mordecai,  Asher  and  his 
son  Jacob,  and  Isserlin,  the  cabalist  Eleazar,  and  others.  The 
Caraites,  too,  had  a  number  of  scholars,  as  Hadassi,  the  two 
Aarons,  and  others.  During  the  early  part  of  this  long  period 
of  literary  activity  in  the  West  the  Jews  enjoyed  peace  and 
prosperity,  with  various  interruptions,  in  Spain,  Portugal, 
Italy,  Greece,  the  islands  of  the  Mediterranean,  in  Hungary, 
especially  under  the  national  kings,  and  in  Poland,  which  hos- 
pitably received  the  numerous  exiles  from  all  neighboring  coun- 
tries, under  the  Piasts,  particularly  the  last  of  them,  Casimir 
the  Great ;  but  there  were  none  in  Muscovy  and  in  the  Scandi- 
navian states;  and  in  England,  where  they  appear  before  the 
time  of  Alfred,  in  France,  where  only  the  early  Carlovingians, 
and  especially  Charlemagne,  favored  them,  and  throughout 
Germany,  their  condition  was  in  the  last  degree  deplorable. 
Circumscribed  in  their  rights  by  decrees  and  laws  of  the  ecclesi- 


176  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

astical  as  well  as  civil  power,  excluded  from  all  honorable  occu- 
pations, driven  from  place  to  place,  from  province  to  province, 
compelled  to  subsist  almost  exclusively  by  mercantile  occupa- 
tions and  usury,  overtaxed  and  degraded  in  the  cities,  kept  in 
narrow  quarters  and  marked  in  their  dress  with  signs  of  con- 
tempt, plundered  by  lawless  barons  and  penniless  princes,  an 
easy  prey  to  all  parties  during  the  civil  feuds,  again  and  again 
robbed  of  their  pecuniary  claims,  owned  and  sold  as  serfs 
(Eammerknechte)  by  the  emperors,  butchered  by  mobs  and 
revolted  peasants,  chased  by  the  monks,  burned  in  thousands 
by  the  crusaders,  who  also  burned  their  brethren  of  Jerusalem  in 
their  synagogue,  tormented  by  ridicule,  abusive  sermons,  mon- 
strous accusations  and  trials,  threats  and  experiments  of  con- 
version, the  Jews  of  those  countries  offer  in  their  mediaeval 
history  a  frightful  picture  of  horrors  and  gloom.  In  England 
they  had  their  worst  days  in  the  reigns  of  Richard  I.,  at  whose 
coronation  they  were  frightfully  massacred  at  York  (1189), 
John,  Henry  III.,  and  Edward  I.,  who  expelled  them  alto- 
gether from  the  realm  (1290).  From  France  they  were  for 
the  last  time  banished  under  Charles  VI.  (1395).  Germany, 
where  the  greatest  anarchy  prevailed,  was  the  scene  of  their 
bloodiest  persecutions,  the  most  frightful  of  which  took  place  in 
the  cities  on  the  Rhine  during  the  great  desolation  by  the  black 
plague,  which  depopulated  Europe  from  the  Volga  to  the  At- 
lantic (1348-'50).  Pointed  out  to  the  ignorant  people  as  hav- 
ing caused  the  pestilence  by  poisoning  the  wells,  the  Jews  were 
burned  by  the  thousands  on  the  public  squares,  or  burned  them- 
selves with  their  families  in  the  synagogues.  Almost  every  im- 
perial city  had  a  general  persecution  of  the  Jews.  The  Swiss 
towns  imitated  their  neighbors,  almost  all  banishing  their 
Jews.  With  the  growing  influence  of  the  inquisition  the  Jews 
of  Southern  Europe,  too,  suffered  the  same  fate.  The  pro- 
tection of  the  popes  being  gradually  withdrawn,  they  were 
banished  from  the  cities  of  Italy  into  separate  quarters  (ghetti), 
and  obliged  to  wear  distinctive  badges;  persecutions  became 
more  frequent;  in  1493  all  the  Jews  of  Sicily,  about  20,000 
families,  were  banished.  In  Spain,  during  a  long  drought  in 
1391-'92,  the  Jewish  inhabitants  were  massacred  in  many  cities. 
The  condition  of  the  Jews  grew  worse  in  the  following  century, 


THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   HEBREWS        177 

until  their  extirpation  from  the  whole  country  was  determined 
upon,  and,  after  repeated  but  fruitless  attempts  at  conversion 
by  the  stake,  finally  carried  into  effect  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
(1492).  More  than  70,000  families  sought  refuge  in  Portugal, 
where  for  a  large  sum  of  money  the  fugitives  were  allowed  to 
remain  for  a  few  months,  in  Africa,  Italy,  Turkey,  and  other 
countries.  Not  the  fifth  part  of  them  survived  the  horrors  of 
compulsory  expatriation,  shipwreck,  and  subsequent  famine. 
The  feeling  observer  may  find  a  compensation  in  the  fact  that 
while  these  events  happened  propitious  winds  carried  three  small 
caravels  across  the  Atlantic  to  a  new  world,  whose  enervating 
treasures  were  destined  to  assist  the  inquisition  in  undermining 
the  power  of  the  oppressors,  and  whose  future  institutions  were 
to  inaugurate  an  era  of  freedom  to  the  descendants  of  the 
oppressed.  The  Jews  of  Portugal  were  banished  soon  after 
(1495)  by  King  Emmanuel,  being  robbed  of  their  children 
under  fourteen  years  of  age,  who  were  sent  to  distant  islands  to 
be  brought  up  as  Christians.  The  numerous  converted  Jews  of 
the  peninsula  and  their  descendants  were  still  persecuted  for 
more  than  two  centuries  by  governments,  inquisitors,  and  mobs. 
These  persecutions,  which  eventually  carried  the  bulk  of  the  Eu- 
ropean Jewish  population  into  the  province  of  Poland  and  Tur- 
key, similar  events  in  the  East  during  the  crusades,  a  long  series 
of  persecutions  in  Germany,  and  in  central  and  southern  Italy 
in  the  16th  century,  and  bloody  massacres  by  the  revolted  Cos- 
sacks under  Chmielnicki  in  the  S.  E.  regions  of  Poland, 
together  with  a  general  and  minutely  developed  system 
of  petty  oppression,  extortion,  and  degradation,  to  which  the 
Jews  were  subjected  in  most  parts  of  Europe  during  the  250 
years  following  their  expulsion  from  the  Iberian  peninsula, 
could  not  but  exercise  a  disastrous  influence  upon  the  culture 
and  literature  of  the  people.  The  spirit  of  cheerful  inquiry, 
study,  and  poetry  which  distinguished  the  Spanish-Provengal 
period,  was  gone.  The  critical  knowledge  and  use  of  the 
Hebrew  was  neglected,  the  study  of  the  Talmud  and  its  com- 
mentaries became  the  almost  exclusive  occupation  of  the  literary 
youth,  and  cabalistic  speculations  replaced  philosophy,  produc- 
ing in  Poland  various  schools  of  religious  enthusiasts  called, 
Hasidim  (pietists).  A  bold  Turkish  Jew,  Shabthay  Tzebi, 


178  ,     MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

•who,  like  the  Persian  Aldaud  or  Alroy  in  the  12th  century,  was 
proclaimed  by  his  cabalistic  followers  the  expected  Messiah  of 
Israel,  found  numerous  adherents  in  various  parts  of  Europe 
(1666),  whose  delusion  was  destroyed  only  by  his  compulsory 
conversion  to  Mohammedanism.  Literature  and  science,  how- 
ever, still  found  scattered  votaries,  especially  in  northern  Italy, 
Turkey,  and  Holland;  and  besides  the  great  talmudists,  theo- 
logians, or  commentators  of  this  period,  Don  I.  Abarbanel,  I. 
Arama,  J.  and  L.  Habib,  Mizrahi,  O.  Bartenura,  O.  Sforno, 
I.  Luria,  T.  Karo,  the  author  of  the  talmudical  abridgment  or 
code  Shulhan  arulch,  E.  Ashkenazi,  Alsheikh,  S.  Luria,  M. 
Isserels,  M.  Jafeh,  Sirks,  S.  Cohen,  Lion  of  Prague,  E.  Lent- 
shitz,  J.  Trani,  J.  Hurwitz,  H.  Vital,  S.  Edels,  Y.  Heller, 
Shabthay  Cohen,  A.  Able,  D.  Oppenheimer,  the  collector  of  the 
best  Hebrew  library  (now  in  Oxford),  Tzebi  Ashkenazi,  H. 
Silva,  J.  Eosanis,  D.  Erankel,  J.  Eybeschiitz,  J.  Emden,  H. 
Landau,  Elias  of  Wilna,  &c.,  we  find  the  philosophers  and  men 
of  science  Bibago,  S.  Cohen,  Amatus,  Almosnino,  De  Castro, 
iA.  Zacchuto,  J.  del  Medigo,  M.  Hef etz,  and  Meto ;  and  among 
the  poets,  grammarians,  critics,  lexicographers,  and  historical 
writers,  De  Balmes,  Elias  Levita,  A.  Farissol,  Solomon  ben 
Melekh,  Jacob  ben  Hayim,  Gedaliah  Jahiah,  A.  de  Eossi, 
De'Pomi,  D.  Gans,  S.  Arkevolte,  Lonsano,  Manasseh  ben  Israel, 
the  defender  of  the  Jews  before  Cromwell,  S.  Norzi,  S.  Luz- 
zato,  Leo  de  Modena,  S.  Mortera,  J.  Orobio,  Shabthay  ben 
Joseph,  B.  Mussaphia,  De  Lara,  J.  Cardoso,  J.  Abendana,  S. 
Hanau,  M.  H.  Luzzato,  J.  Heilprin,  Azulia,  and  others.  Be- 
yond the  limits  of  the  Turkish  empire  there  was  scarcely  any 
trace  of  Jewish  literature  in  the  East,  though  there  were  and 
are  still  numerous  Jewish  communities  in  Persia,  northern 
Arabia,  Independent  Tartary,  and  Afghanistan,  as  well  as  scat- 
tered colonies,  mostly  of  more  or  less  mixed  race  and  religion, 
in  India,  China,  Cochin  China,  Yemen,  Abyssinia,  and  other 
parts  of  Africa,  partly  of  very  ancient  date,  partly  founded  by 
escaped  Portuguese  and  Spanish  New  Christians,  some  of  whom 
also  settled  in  parts  of  Brazil  and  Guiana  during  the  occupation 
by  the  Dutch.  In  Europe  the  last  of  the  three  great  religious 
struggles,  against  paganism,  against  Mohammedanism,  and  be- 
tween the  contending  Christian  sects,  all  of  which  were  de- 


THE    HISTOKY    OF    THE    HEBKEWS         179 

struetive  to  the  Jews,  was  terminated  by  the  peace  of  West- 
phalia (1648).  Catholicism  was  triumphant  in  the  south  and 
in  France,  Protestantism  in  the  north  and  north-west.  The 
greater  persecutions  of  the  Jews  now  ceased.  They  became 
flourishing  in  the  republics  of  Holland  and  Venice  and  their 
dependencies,  were  readmitted  into  England  by  Cromwell  (hav- 
ing also  entered  Denmark  and  returned  into  France),  spread 
with  the  Dutch  and  English  to  various  parts  of  America,  re- 
entered  Eussia  under  Peter  the  Great  (to  be  expelled  after- 
ward), were  admitted  in  Sweden,  and  were  protected  and  often 
employed  in  high  stations  by  the  Sultans  of  Turkey  and  Morocco. 
In  Germany  and  Switzerland,  where  the  struggle  was  not  termi- 
nated by  any  decisive  triumphs,  the  mediaeval  treatment  of  the 
Jews  continued  longest,  its  worst  features  being  maintained  and 
developed  in  Austria  (excepting  in  the  reign  of  Joseph  II.), 
where  down  to  the  revolution  of  1848  the  Jews  were  excluded 
from  all  civil  rights,  numerous  professions,  and  various  prov- 
inces, districts,  towns,  villages,  and  streets,  paying  beside  a  tax 
for  toleration  in  Hungary,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  the 
legislatures,  a  tax  upon  their  sabbath  lights  in  Galicia,  and 
a  residence  tax  when  visiting  Vienna;  while  their  houses  in 
Moravia  were  often  searched  in  the  night  of  the  sabbath  for 
the  purpose  of  surprising  the  returned  Jewish  peddlers  who  had 
been  secretly  married  before  the  extinction  of  all  older  brothers, 
which  was  prohibited  by  a  Pharaonic  law.  The  general  progress 
of  freedom  was  promoted  in  the  age  of  philosophy  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  Spinoza  and  Mendelssohn  (1729— '86)  among  this 
long  despised  people.  The  influence  of  the  latter  upon  the 
Jews  and  Christians  through  his  works,  example,  fame,  and 
friends  (the  great  Hebrew  poet  Wessely,  Euchel,  Lowe,  Fried- 
lander,  &c.,  among  Jews,  and  Lessing,  Dohm,  Abt,  Mcolai, 
Engel,  Ramler,  &c.,  among  Christians),  was  immense;  and  his 
admirers  could  say:  '  Between  Moses  (the  lawgiver)  and  Moses 
(Mendelssohn)  there  was  only  one  Moses  (Maimonides).' 
Progress  now  became  general  among  the  Jews,  and  the  noble 
philosopher  lived  to  see  the  first  dawn  of  freedom  in  the  land 
of  Franklin  and  Jefferson.  The  great  revolution  in  that  of 
Voltaire  and  Rousseau  came  next,  and  the  triumphs  of  republi- 
can and  imperial  France  destroyed  the  mediaeval  institutions  on 


180  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

the  Rhine  and  Po.  Liberty,  crushed  in  Poland  by  the  Russians, 
when  500  of  Kosciuszko's  Jewish  volunteers  fell  fighting  to 
the  last  on  the  ramparts  of  Praga  (1794),  was  successively 
victorious  in  the  West.  Proclaimed  in  the  United  States  and 
France,  the  rights  of  the  Jews  were  recognized  in  Holland, 
Belgium,  Denmark,  parts  of  Germany,  Canada,  and  Jamaica; 
in  1848— '49  throughout  Germany,  Italy,  and  Hungary;  and 
finally  in  Norway  and  England.  Among  the  most  zealous  de- 
fenders of  the  rights  of  the  Jews  were  the  Frenchman  Gregoire, 
the  Pole  Czacki,  the  German  Welcker,  the  Irishman  O'Connell, 
the  Englishman  Lord  John  Russell,  the  Italian  D'Azeglio,  and 
the  Hungarian  Eotvos,  all  Christians;  the  Jews  by  descent 
Borne  and  Disraeli,  and  the  professing  Jews  Jacobssohn, 
Tugendhold,  Riesser,  Philipssohn,  Montefiore,  and  Cremieux. 
The  revolutionary  movement  of  1848— '9  proved  the  immense 
progress  of  the  Jews  as  well  as  of  public  opinion  since  Mendels- 
sohn and  Lessing.  The  Jews  Cremieux,  Goudchaux,  and  Fould 
(now  minister  of  state)  were  among  the  ministers  of  the  French 
republic;  Pincherle  was  a  member  of  the  provisional  govern- 
ment in  Venice;  Jacobi  of  Kb'nigsberg  was  the  leader  of  the 
opposition  in  the  Berlin  parliament;  Riesser  was  vice-president 
of  that  of  Frankfort ;  Dr.  Fischhof  stood  at  the  head  of  affairs 
in  Vienna  after  the  flight  of  the  court;  Meisels,  the  rabbi  of 
Cracow,  was  elected  to  the  Austrian  diet  by  Polish  patriots; 
and  Hungarian  barons  and  counts  willingly  fought  under  Jew- 
ish officers  of  higher  rank,  of  whom  the  adjutant  of  Gen. 
Nagy-Sandor,  Freund,  afterward  became  Mahmoud  Pasha  dur- 
ing the  war  in  Turkey." 

A1  STEIKINO  ARTICLE  ON  HUNGABY 

The  article  "  Hungary,"  in  spite  of  its  extreme  condensation, 
vividly  characterizes  events  and  personages,  and  exhibits  that 
extraordinary  familiarity  with  strategic  movements  which  stood 
Mr.  Heilprin  in  such  good  stead,  in  his  comments  on  the 
Franco-German  and  Russo-Turkish  wars.  Want  of  space  for- 
bids my  quoting  more  than  a  brief  portion  of  the  article. 

"The  peace  of  Passarovitz  (1718),  the  result  of  Eugene's 
new  victories,  enlarged  the  kingdom  with  the  Banat,  the  last 


A   CONDENSED    STOEY    OF   HUNGAKY      181 

province  of  the  Turks  in  Hungary;  but  after  another  war 
Belgrade  was  ceded  to  the  Turks  by  the  treaty  concluded  in 
that  city  in  1739.  Charles's  mild  reign  disposed  the  nation 
to  defend  the  disputed  rights  of  his  daughter  Maria  Theresa 
(1740-'80),  who  appeared  in  person  before  the  diet  of  Pres- 
burg,  and  was  greeted  with  lively  acclamations  by  the  chivalric 
nobles.  Their  Moriamur  pro  rege  nostro  Maria  Theresa  was 
no  vain  promise,  for  Hungarian  blood  was  shed  profusely  in  her 
wars  against  Frederic  the  Great  and  other  enemies.  She  re- 
warded the  fidelity  of  the  people  by  mildness,  and  various 
ameliorations  of  the  condition  of  the  peasantry  (the  Urbarium) 
are  among  the  merits  of  her  reign;  but  she  too  was  far  from 
strictly  observing  the  constitution,  which  her  son  Joseph  II. 
(1780— '90),  in  his  immoderate  zeal  for  reforms  and  centraliza- 
tion, was  eager  to  destroy.  To  avoid  binding  himself  by  the 
constitutional  oath,  he  refused  to  be  crowned  in  Hungary,  auto- 
cratically dictated  his  liberal  reforms,  and  imposed  upon  the 
country  foreign  officials,  a  foreign  language,  the  German,  and 
foreign  official  costumes.  But  his  violent  though  well  meant 
measures  were  opposed  everywhere,  and  the  rising  in  his  Belgic 
provinces,  the  unfavorable  issue  of  his  war  against  Turkey, 
and  finally  the  threatening  events  in  France,  compelled  the 
philanthropic  despot  to  revoke  his  decrees  shortly  before  his 
death.  His  mild  and  dissolute  brother  Leopold  II.  (1790-'92), 
afraid  of  the  growing  storm  in  the  West,  hastened  to  appease 
the  Hungarian  nation,  which  had  been  aroused  by  ignominious 
treatment  and  the  spectacle  of  its  perishing  neighbor  Poland  to 
a  general  desire  of  national  regeneration.  The  diet  of  1791 
again  sanctioned  the  most  essential  constitutional  rights  of  the 
kingdom  in  general,  and  of  the  Protestants  in  particular,  and 
for  a  series  of  years  Francis,  the  son  and  successor  of  Leopold 
(1792—1835),  was  satisfied  during  his  long  wars  against  re- 
publican and  imperial  France  with  the  continual  subsidies  of 
Hungary  in  money  and  men,  including  the  hussars,  whom  even 
Napoleon  acknowledged  to  be  the  bravest  in  the  ranks  of  his 
enemies.  The  rare  manifestations  of  democratic  convictions 
he  stifled  in  the  dungeons  of  his  fortresses,  or,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  priest  Martinovics  (1795),  in  the  blood  of  the  offenders. 
The  magnates  were  flattered  and  remained  faithful.  Thus 


182  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Napoleon  in  vain  called  upon  the  Hungarians  to  rise  for 
national  independence.  The  last  '  general  rising '  of  the  no- 
bility was  the  answer  (1809),  but  proved  at  the  same  time  how 
incapable  the  old  spirit  was  of  being  revived.  Scarcely,  how- 
ever, had  the  dangers  passed  which  so  long  threatened  the 
crowns  of  Francis,  when  his  minister  Metternich  made  it  one 
of  his  principal  tasks  for  the  restoration  of  the  shaken  and  bank- 
rupt Austrian  empire  to  undermine  the  constitution  of  Hun- 
gary, the  only  check  on  the  unlimited  sway  of  the  rulers. 
Every  means,  secret  or  open,  was  resorted  to,  but  in  vain. 
The  progress  of  enlightenment,  the  warning  example  of  Galicia, 
that  withering  limb  of  Poland  torn  from  its  body  by  Austria, 
and  the  spirit  of  nationality,  rekindled  by  the  activity  of  Francis 
Kazinczy  and  others,  had  prepared  the  nation  for  a  struggle 
for  constitutionalism  and  liberal  reforms,  which  Metternich, 
both  under  Francis  and  his  imbecile  son  Ferdinand  V.  (I.  as 
emperor  of  Austria,  1835-'4r8),  was  unable  effectively  to  resist. 
The  Hungarian  constitution  had  during  the  last  few  centuries 
undergone  numerous  modifications,  without  having  at  any  period 
of  its  existence  lost  its  vitality.  As  it  was  now,  it  was  at  the 
same  time  a  charter  of  freedom,  which  shielded  the  people  at 
large  against  the  tyrannical  sway  of  the  princes  and  their  min- 
isters, against  oppressive  taxes  and  levies,  and  especially  the 
Protestants  and  Jews  against  the  prescriptive  system  which 
prevailed  in  Austria,  and  secured  to  the  numerous  nobility  the 
greatest  degree  of  personal  liberty  and  immunity  enjoyed  by 
any  class  in  Europe,  and  on  the  other  hand  an  instrument  of 
oppression  in  the  hands  of  the  nobility  against  all  plebeian  in- 
habitants of  the  country,  especially  the  peasantry,  which  was 
degraded  by  numerous  feudal  burdens.  The  nobles  were  free 
from  every  tax  and  personal  service,  except  in  case  of  a  hostile 
attack  on  the  country  itself,  when  they  were  obliged  to  rise  in 
a  body  at  their  own  expense;  they  enjoyed  all  the  privileges 
of  the  right  of  habeas  corpus,  governed  the  countries  by  their 
regular  assemblies  ('congregations')  and  court  sessions,  elect- 
ing the  vice-counts,  administrative  judges,  court  assessors,  etc., 
and  exercised  the  right  of  legislation  by  their  deputies  to  the 
lower  house  of  the  diet,  two  from  each  county,  who  in  impor- 
tant questions  were  bound  by  the  instructions  of  their  con- 


A   CONDENSED    STOKY    OF   HUNGARY      183 

stituents.  The  higher  nobility,  or  magnates,  dukes,  counts, 
and  barons,  together  with  the  chief  dignitaries  of  the  crown, 
the  Catholic  and  Greek  bishops  and  some  other  prelates,  and 
the  county  presidents  or  lord  lieutenants,  formed  the  upper 
house  of  the  diet  under  the  presidency  of  the  palatine.  The 
absent  magnates  were  represented  in  the  lower  house  by  proxies, 
who,  however,  like  some  other  minor  members,  had  only  a  de- 
liberative vote ;  while  the  deputies  of  all  free  royal  towns,  which 
had  their  own  separate  domestic  administration,  could  cast 
only  one  decisive  vote.  The  diet,  which  in  the  earliest  times 
had  been  held  at  Stuhlweissenburg  or  on  the  plain  of  Rakos 
before  Pesth,  and  during  the  Turkish  and  civil  wars  in  various 
cities,  was  now  regularly  convoked  by  the  monarch  at  Presburg, 
at  intervals  not  exceeding  three  years.  Its  duration  was  un- 
limited. Beside  general  legislation,  it  voted  the  various  non- 
domestic  contributions  of  the  country,  the  refusal  of  which  was 
the  most  effective  weapon  against  the  Vienna  government.  The 
chief  royal  organs  of  general  administration  were  the  Hungarian 
aulic  chancery  at  Vienna,  and  the  royal  council  at  Buda,  whose 
decisions,  however,  very  often  met  with  opposition  or  delay  in 
the  county  assemblies.  This  vis  inertias  of  the  latter  was  the 
principal  check  on  all  despotic  or  unconstitutional  attempts  of 
the  ministers,  while  their  publicity  and  jealously  guarded  free- 
dom of  debate  were  the  chief  elements  of  progress  and  political 
enlightenment.  Gradually  to  abolish  the  immunities  of  the 
nobles  and  the  feudal  burdens  of  the  peasantry,  to  endow  the 
great  bulk  of  the  people  with  political  rights,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  fortify  the  old  bulwarks  of  the  constitution,  now  be- 
came the  task  of  the  patriots ;  and  the  great  movement  offered 
the  rare  spectacle  of  an  aristocracy  contending  for  the  abolition 
of  privileges  and  the  equality  of  the  people.  Paul  Nagy  and 
Count  Stephen  Szechenyi  were  the  champions  of  nationality  at 
the  diet  of  1825,  which  inaugurated  a  long  period  of  moderate 
but  gradual  reforms,  the  most  important  of  which  were  car- 
ried through  at  the  diets  of  1832-'6,  1839-'40,  and  1843-'4. 
The  rights  of  the  non-noble  citizens,  peasantry,  and  Jews,  the 
equality  of  the  Christian  confessions,  the  official  use  of  the 
Hungarian  language,  and  the  freedom  of  speech  were  extended, 
the  majority  of  the  educated  lower  nobility  and  a  minority 


184  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

of  the  higher  ardently  contending  against  old  abuses  and 
aristocratic  immunities,  against  bureaucratic  despotism  and 
religious  intolerance.  Among  the  chief  leaders  of  the  '  lib- 
eral opposition'  under  Ferdinand  were  the  members  of  the 
upper  house  Count  Louis  Batthyanyi  and  Baron  Eotvos;  the 
deputies  Deak  of  Zala,  Bezeredy  of  Tolna,  Beothy  of  Bihar, 
Klauzal  of  Csongrad,  Paloczy  and  Szemere  of  Borsod,  Szent- 
kiralyi  and  Eaday  of  Pesth,  Balogh  of  Bars,  and  Kubinyi  of 
Nograd;  the  great  Transylvanian  agitator  Baron  Wesselenyi, 
and  the  publicist  Kossuth.  The  cabinet  of  Vienna  chose  the 
last  five  as  its  victims,  prosecuting  them  for  treason,  and  im- 
prisoning Wesselenyi  and  Kossuth  for  years.  The  old  palatine 
Joseph,  the  uncle  of  the  emperor,  and  the  conservatives  under 
the  lead  of  Counts  Aurel  and  Emil  Dessewffy,  as  well  as  of 
the  moderate  Szechenyi,  in  vain  strove  to  check  the  agitation. 
It  reached  its  culminating  point  when  Kossuth,  after  a  lively 
struggle,  was  elected  as  representative  of  Pesth  to  the  diet  of 
1847.  Europe  was  agitated;  the  last  rising  of  Poland  (1846) 
had  been  suppressed  by  a  massacre  of  the  nobles  in  Galicia,  and 
the  republic  of  Cracow  annihilated;  the  Swiss  confederation 
was  convulsed  by  a  civil  war;  Pius  IX.  had  given  the  signal 
for  constitutional  movements  in  Italy;  Sardinia  was  arming 
against  Austria,  and  France  preparing  for  a  new  struggle. 
Kossuth  proposed  extensive  reforms,  and  was  ardently  sup- 
ported by  the  house  of  deputies  and  the  nation.  A  conflict 
with  the  government  seemed  imminent,  when  the  general  shock 
which  followed  the  French  revolution  of  February  overthrew 
the  rule  of  Metternich  (March  13, 1848).  Kossuth  was  greeted 
as  liberator  by  the  people  of  Vienna,  and  together  with  L. 
Batthyanyi  intrusted  with  the  formation  of  an  independent 
Hungarian  ministry  by  Ferdinand.  The  people  of  Pesth,  under 
the  lead  of  the  youthful  poet  Petofi,  delivered  in  triumph  the 
plebeian  martyr  for  freedom  Stancsics,  proclaimed  the  liberty 
of  the  press,  and  the  radical  '  wishes  of  the  nation '  (March 
15).  The  new  ministry  embraced  its  favorites ;  Batthyanyi  was 
president,  Kossuth  was  minister  of  finance,  Szechenyi  of  public 
works,  Deak  of  justice,  Eotvos  of  public  worship  and  education, 
Szemere  of  home  affairs,  Klauzal  of  commerce,  and  Meszaros 
of  war,  beside  Prince  Paul  Esterhazy  as  quasi  minister  of 


A   CONDENSED    STOKY    OF   HUNGARY      185 

foreign  affairs  in  Vienna.  Having  enacted  the  abolition  of 
feudality,  a  new  election  law,  and  various  other  radical  changes 
in  the  constitution,  the  last  diet  of  Presburg  dissolved,  the  new 
national  assembly  being  appointed  to  meet  in  July  at  Pesth. 
The  national  government,  however,  whose  animating  spirit  was 
Kossuth,  was  from  the  beginning  surrounded  by  open  and  secret 
enemies,  and  endless  difficulties  and  embarrassments.  The 
cabinet  of  Vienna  commenced  its  intrigues  against  the  new 
order  of  things  on  the  very  day  it  sanctioned  it.  Jellachich 
and  others  were  sent  openly  or  secretly  to  organize  an  insur- 
rection of  the  southern  Slavic  tribes,  which  had  long  been 
worked  upon  by  a  threefold  national  agitation,  by  the  tools  of 
the  Austrian  government  against  the  Magyars,  by  popular  en- 
thusiasts in  the  interest  of  a  democratic  Pan-Slavic  union,  and 
by  Russian  emissaries  in  the  interest  of  a  similar  union  under 
the  rule  of  the  czar.  Secret  agents  prepared  a  rising  of  the 
Wallachs  in  Transylvania,  the  diet  of  which  proclaimed  its 
reunion  with  Hungary.  Dangerous  tumults  broke  out  in  various 
German  cities  and  among  the  Slovaks  of  the  Waag.  The  for- 
tresses and  the  foreign  soldiery  in  the  country  were  commanded 
by  Austrian  officers,  and  the  Hungarian  regiments  were  re- 
tained in  Italy  and  Galicia.  There  were  no  national  finances, 
no  arms  nor  arm  foundries.  Every  new  measure  met  with 
opposition  or  delay  through  the  Vienna  government  or  its  tools. 
Negotiations  had  no  result.  The  whole  south  of  the  country 
was  soon  in  a  flame.  The  Rascians  rose  in  the  Military  Fron- 
tier, in  the  Banat  and  Bacs,  and  the  Wallachs  in  Transylvania, 
the  Saxons  also  declaring  for  Austria;  Croatia  and  Slavonia 
proclaimed  their  independence  of  Hungary,  and  Ban  Jellachich 
occupied  the  Littorale,  and  threatened  to  cross  the  Drave. 
Against  all  these  contingencies  the  only  resource  of  the  govern- 
ment was  its  own  zeal  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people.  Vol- 
unteer troops  (honveds,  defenders  of  the  land)  were  raised  in 
the  counties,  rich  contributions  toward  a  national  treasury  were 
collected,  and  the  militia  was  organized.  The  diet  assembled 
in  July,  and  voted  extensive  levies  and  ample  means  for  defence, 
but  Ferdinand  refused  to  sanction  its  resolutions.  The  Austrian 
troops  which  were  still  sent  against  the  insurgents  were  led  by 
traitors.  Even  Meszaros  was  repulsed  from  Szent  Tamas  by 


186  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

the  Rascians  in  August ;  the  new  troops  were  slowly  gathering. 
Jellachieh  finally  crossed  the  Drave,  and  the  Vienna  govern- 
ment, having  reconquered  Lombardy,  threw  off  its  mask  in 
September,  and  sent  Count  Lamberg  to  disperse  the  diet  by 
force.  The  Batthyanyi  ministry  now  resigned,  and  a  committee 
of  defence  was  formed  under  the  presidency  of  Kossuth.  The 
revolution  began.  The  old  troops  were  transformed  and  blended 
with  the  new.  Kossuth's  ardent  eloquence  brought  the  people 
of  the  central  plains  under  arms.  Single  detachments  of  Hun- 
garian troops  returned  with  or  without  their  officers  from  abroad. 
Comorn  was  secured.  Archduke  Stephen,  the  new  palatine, 
fled  the  country.  Lamberg  was  massacred  on  the  bridge  of 
Pesth  by  a  mob.  Jellachieh  was  defeated  at  Pakozd  near  Buda 
by  the  motley  national  army  under  Moga  (Sept.  29)  and  fled 
toward  Vienna,  which  rose  in  revolution  (Oct.  6).  Perczel  and 
Gorgey  surrounded  and  disarmed  at  Ozora  the  isolated  Croatian 
corps  under  Roth  and  Philippovics  (Oct.  7).  The  fortresses, 
Comorn,  Eszek,  Peterwardein,  Leopoldstadt,  and  Munkacs, 
hoisted  the  national  flag.  On  the  other  hand,  Rukavina  in 
Temesvar  and  Berger  in  Arad  hoisted  that  of  Austria,  and 
made  common  cause  with  the  Rascians,  who  committed  fright- 
ful massacres.  The  war  of  races  raged  with  terrible  fury  and 
varying  success.  Transylvania  was  entirely  lost.  The  pur- 
suit of  Jellachieh  was  executed  with  hesitation  by  Moga,  a 
late  Austrian  general,  the  frontier  river  Leitha  was  crossed 
too  late,  and  the  hastily  collected  volunteers  fled  after  a  short 
fight  at  Schwechat  (Oct.  30)  against  Windischgratz  and  Jella- 
chieh, who  thus  became  masters  of  Vienna.  Katona,  sent  to 
reconquer  Transylvania,  was  routed  at  Dees  (Nov.).  The 
Polish  volunteers  under  Wysocki  made  unsuccessful  attempts 
to  capture  Arad.  Count  Schlick  entered  Hungary  from  the 
north,  dispersed  the  Hungarian  militia  on  the  mountain  before 
Kaschau,  and  occupied  that  city  (Dec.  11).  The  Rascian 
Damjanics  alone  led  his  valiant  honveds  to  victory  at  Lagerndorf 
(Nov.  9),  and  Alibunar  (Dec.  17)  on  the  S.  E.  frontier, 
while  Perczel  successfully  defended  the  line  of  the  Drave 
on  the  S.  W.  Unable  to  defend  the  W.  frontier  against 
Windischgratz,  Simunich,  and  Nugent,  Gorgey,  the  new  com- 
mander of  the  army  of  the  upper  Danube,  retreated  on  the 


A   CONDENSED    STORY   OF   HUNGARY     187 

right  bank  of  that  river,  evacuating  Presburg,  Raab,  and  after 
the  rout  of  the  equally  retreating  Perczel  at  Moor  (Dec.  29), 
and  the  engagement  at  Teteny  (Jan.  3,  1849),  the  capital 
Buda-Pesth  itself  (Jan.  5).  The  day  before,  Schlick  dis- 
persed the  undisciplined  army  of  the  north  under  Meszaros, 
the  minister  of  war.  Thus  the  government  and  diet,  which 
transferred  their  seat  to  Debreczin,  would  have  had  little  pros- 
pect of  security  if  the  Polish  general  Bern  had  not  begun 
in  the  latter  half  of  December  a  new  Transylvanian  campaign, 
which  cheered  the  patriots  with  a  nearly  unbroken  series  of 
signal  successes  over  the  imperialists  under  Urban  and  Puchner. 
Gorgey,  too,  who  according  to  a  new  plan  of  operations  returned 
westward  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Danube,  leaving  part  of  his 
troops  with  Perczel  on  the  middle  Theiss,  succeeded  in  divert- 
ing the  Austrian  main  army  under  Windischgratz  from  a  march 
toward  the  latter  river,  though  not  in  rescuing  Leopoldstadt, 
which  surrendered.  Then  turning  northward,  he  skilfully 
fought  his  way  through  the  rugged  region  of  the  ore  mountains, 
amid  continual  perils,  and,  after  a  signal  victory  of  his  van- 
guard under  Guyon,  who  had  already  proved  his  heroism  in 
many  a  previous  battle,  over  Schlick's  corps  on  Mount  Brany- 
iszko  (Feb.  5),  finally  effected  a  junction  with  the  army  of 
the  upper  Theiss,  which  under  Klapka  had  been  successful 
against  that  Austrian  general  (Jan.  22,  23,  and  31).  Dam- 
janics  was  recalled  with  his  troops  from  the  south,  Perczel  de- 
fended the  middle  Theiss,  and  Asztalos  repulsed  the  Rascians 
on  the  Maros  (Feb.  10).  The  activity  of  Kossuth  and  his 
associates  in  supplying  all  these  bodies  of  troops  with  men, 
ammunition,  money,  and  officers,  while  almost  all  parts  of  the 
country  were  alternately  crossed  by  imperial  and  national 
armies,  was  admirable.  The  zeal  of  the  committee  of  defence, 
however,  was  worthily  responded  to  by  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  who,  even  when  two  thirds  of  the  country  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy,  almost  as  willingly  accepted  '  Kossuth's 
bills '  as  specie,  and  by  the  general  bravery  of  the  troops,  old 
and  new,  hussars,  honveds,  and  artillerists.  Order  reigned  in 
the  midst  of  war;  the  prisons  were  empty.  But  new  dangers 
arose  with  the  invasion  of  the  Russians  from  the  Danubian 
principalities  into  Transylvania,  where  Bern,  after  a  triumphant 


188  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

march  (January)  was  suddenly  checked  before  Hermannstadt, 
repulsed,  threatened  in  the  rear  by  Saxons,  Wallachs,  and  the 
garrison  of  Carlsburg,  and  could  save  his  position  at  Piski 
(Feb.  9,  10)  only  after  the  loss  of  a  part  of  his  heroic  troops; 
and  within  the  national  camp  by  the  stubborn  disobedience  and 
intrigues  of  Gorgey,  almost  bordering  on  treason,  which  caused 
the  escape  of  Schlick  from  Kaschau,  the  unfavorable  issue  of 
the  great  battle  of  Kapolna  (Feb.  26,  27),  the  retreat  of  the 
united  main  army  beyond  the  Theiss,  the  deposition  of  its 
commander,  the  Pole  Dembinski,  at  Fiired,  and  a  considerable 
loss  of  time.  Another  heavy  loss  was  that  of  the  isolated 
fortress  Eszek,  which  was  surrendered  with  immense  stores  by 
its  cowardly  commanders.  Elated  by  the  dispatches  of  Prince 
Windischgratz,  the  young  emperor  Francis  Joseph,  who  had 
succeeded  his  uncle  at  Olmiitz  (Dec.  2,  1848),  now  promul- 
gated a  new  constitution  (March  4),  which  with  one  stroke 
annihilated  the  constitution  and  national  independence  of  Hun- 
gary, making  it,  with  narrowed  limits,  a  crownland  of  Austria. 
But  the  next  few  days  brought  a  new  series  of  Hungarian  vic- 
tories. Crossing  the  Theiss  in  the  night,  Damjanics  surprised 
and  totally  routed  the  Austrians  at  Szolnok  (March  5).  Bern 
by  a  sudden  assault  took  Hermannstadt  (llth),  and  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  'day  of  Pesth '  (15th)  drove  the  Russians 
and  Puchner  through  the  Red  Tower  pass  into  Wallachia. 
After  the  occupation  of  Cronstadt  (20th),  all  Transylvania, 
except  Carlsburg,  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Polish  general,  under 
whom  Magyars  and  Szeklers,  Poles  and  Viennese  students 
fought  with  equal  bravery.  Perczel  swept  over  the  Rascian 
Vendee,  and  stormed  the  ramparts  of  Sz.  Tamas  (March, 
April).  The  temporary  chief  commander  of  the  main  army, 
Vetter,  having  fallen  ill,  Gorgey  finally  received  the  command, 
and  the  offensive  against  Windischgratz  was  resumed.  Com- 
manded under  him  by  Damjanics,  Klapka,  Aulich,  Wysocki, 
&c.,  the  army  crossed  the  Theiss  at  various  points,  and,  ad- 
vancing toward  the  capital,  defeated  the  enemy  at  Hatvan 
(April  2),  Bicske  (4th),  and  Izsaszeg  (6th),  and,  leaving  a 
corps  under  Aulich  before  Pesth  to  cover  the  main  body,  sud- 
denly turned  toward  Waitzen,  took  it  by  assault  (10th),  routed 
the  Austrians  at  ISTagy  Sarlo  (19th),  rescued  Comorn,  which 


A   CONDENSED    STOEY    OF   HUNGARY      189 

had  withstood  a  long  siege  and  bombardment,  and  crossing  the 
Danube,  gained  a  victory  at  Acs  (26th).  Schlick,  Windisch- 
gratz,  Jellachich,  Gb'tz,  who  fell  at  Waitzen,  Wohlgemuth,  and 
Welden  were  thus  successively  defeated  in  this  short  campaign, 
during  which  the  diet  at  Debreczin  proclaimed  the  independence 
of  the  country  (April  14),  appointing  Kossuth  its  governor, 
and  Aulich  entered  Pesth.  Benyiczky  and  a  younger  brother 
of  Gorgey  cleared  the  mountain  region  of  the  N.  W.  In- 
stead, however,  of  continuing  his  victorious  march  to  the 
capital  of  the  enemy,  Gorgey  returned  with  the  bulk  of  his 
army  to  the  siege  of  Buda,  which  had  been  strongly  fortified 
and  was  strenuously  defended  under  Henzi,  while  a  new  and 
extensive  Russian  invasion  was  approaching.  Buda  was  finally 
stormed  (May  21),  Henzi  being  mortally  wounded,  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  diet  returned  to  the  capital,  and  Gorgey  again 
took  the  field;  but,  bent  on  intrigues  against  Kossuth,  the 
new  presiding  minister  Szemere,  Dembinski,  who  commanded 
in  the  north,  and  his  own  generals,  he  chose  the  N.  bank 
of  the  Danube  for  his  new  campaign,  which  suited  his  political 
schemes,  and,  without  profiting  by  Kmetty's  victory  at  Csorna, 
S.  of  that  river  (June  13),  wasted  the  blood  of  his  army 
on  the  Waag.  The  Russian  armies  and  fresh  Austrian  troops 
under  Haynau  were  in  the  meanwhile  pouring  into  the  country 
from  various  quarters.  Wysocki,  the  successor  of  Dembinski 
in  command,  retreated  before  Paskevitch;  Temesvar  was  un- 
successfully besieged  by  Vecsey ;  Bern  was  paralyzed  by  a  new 
and  more  terrible  rising  of  the  Wallachs,  while  his  province, 
too,  was  invaded  by  the  Russians.  After  various  unsuccessful 
struggles  on  the  line  of  the  Waag  (June  16,  17",  20,  21),  the 
loss  of  Raab  (28th),  and  the  great  battle  of  Szb'ny  (July  2), 
Gorgey,  leaving  Klapka  in  Comorn,  finally  retreated  toward  the 
middle  Theiss;  but  after  a  bloody  fight  against  Paskevitch 
at  Waitzen  (15th),  he  turned  northward,  again  and  again  re- 
pulsing the  Russians,  and  crossed  the  Theiss  at  Tokaj.  The 
Russians  crossed  it  at  Fiired,  while  the  central  Hungarian 
forces  under  the  chief  command  of  Dembinski  retreated  toward 
Szegedin,  where  they  were  joined  by  Guyon,  who  had  routed 
Jellachich  at  Kis  Hegyes  (14th).  The  government  leaving  the 
former  place,  where  the  last  session  of  the  diet  had  been  held, 


190  MICHAEL   HEILPKItf 

retired  to  Arad,  which,  having  recently  surrendered,  was  made 
the  last  point  of  general  concentration,  after  the  rout  of  Bern 
at  Schassburg  by  the  Russians  under  Liiders  (29th),  of  one  of 
Gorgey's  divisions  under  Nagy-Sandor  before  Debreczin  by  the 
army  of  Paskevitch  (Aug.  2),  and  of  Dembinski  at  Szoreg  by 
Haynau  (5th).  Dembinski,  however,  retreated  toward  Temes- 
var,  where  his  army  suffered  a  terrible  defeat  (9th).  Gorgey, 
who  now  arrived  at  Arad,  summoned  Kossuth  to  resign,  and 
received  from  him  the  supreme  civil  and  military  command 
(llth),  Klapka's  sally  from  Comorn  and  signal  victory  over 
the  besieging  Austrian  army  (3d)  being  unknown  at  Arad. 
Two  days  later  Gorgey  surrendered  his  army  at  discretion  to 
the  generals  of  the  czar  at  Vilagos  (13th).  Damjanics  fol- 
lowed his  example,  and  surrendered  Arad  (17th).  Kossuth, 
the  late  ministers  Szemere  and  Casimir  Batthyanyi,  the  gen- 
erals Bern,  Dembinski,  Meszaros,  Vetter,  Perczel,  Guyon, 
Kmetty,  Wysocki,  and  others,  fled  into  Turkey.  Munkacs, 
Peterwardein,  and  Comorn  capitulated.  But  scarcely  had  the 
tricolor  disappeared  from  the  ramparts  of  the  last  named  fortress 
(Oct.  4),  when  the  work  of  revenge  commenced  on  the  side  of 
the  victors.  Count  Louis  Batthyanyi,  who  had  been  made 
captive  on  a  mission  of  peaceful  mediation,  was  executed  at 
Pesth  (6th),  and  the  generals  Kis,  Aulich,  Damjanics,  Nagy- 
Sandor,  Tb'rok,  Lahner,  Vecsey,  Knezich,  Poltenberg,  Leinin- 
gen,  Schweidel,  Dessewffy,  and  Lazar,  all  of  whom  had  sur- 
rendered at  discretion,  were  executed  on  the  same  day  at  Arad. 
The  old  president  of  the  upper  house  at  Debreczin,  Baron 
Perenyi,  Szacsvay,  Csernyus,  Giron,  Abancourt,  the  young 
Polish  prince  Woroniecki,  the  revolutionary  minister  Csanyi, 
and  Baron  Jessenak  were  executed  at  Pesth  a  few  days  later, 
like  most  of  the  preceding,  on  the  gallows.  Col.  Kazinczy 
was  shot  at  Arad.  Other  executions  followed.  The  dungeons 
of  the  empire  were  filled  with  prisoners  for  life  or  a  long  term 
of  years,  including  priests,  officers,  and  government  officials  of 
every  confession,  rank,  and  age.  Gorgey  was  confined  at 
Klagenfurth.  The  remnants  of  the  Hungarian  troops  were 
impressed  into  the  Austrian  army,  and  the  estates  of  the  rich 
patriots  confiscated.  The  country  remained  under  martial  law, 
receiving  new  divisions,  authorities,  and  tax  regulations,  and 


A   CONDENSED    STORY    OF   HUNGARY      191 

foreign  officials.  The  German  was  made  the  language  of  the 
recognized  higher  courts,  offices,  and  schools.  New  contribu- 
tions, military  levies,  and  so  called  voluntary  loans,  followed 
each  other.  A  conspiracy  and  an  attempt  on  the  emperor's 
life  led  to  the  resumption  of  wholesale  executions  in  1853.  The 
Protestants  and  Jews  were  subjected  to  particular  restrictions. 
Thus  in  spite  of  various  scanty  amnesties,  and  two  journeys  of 
the  emperor  through  the  country,  the  feelings  of  the  nation  re- 
mained hostile  to  Austria,  and  the  attack  on  the  latter  by  France 
and  Sardinia  in  the  spring  of  1859  became  the  signal  for 
national  agitations  abroad  (under  Kossuth,  Count  Ladislas 
Teleky,  Klapka,  and  others)  as  well  as  at  home,  which,  after  the 
sudden  discomfiture  of  all  sanguine  hopes  by  the  agreement  of 
Villafranca,  concentrated  themselves  in  a  moderate  but  steady 
opposition  to  the  new  religious,  financial,  and  municipal  meas- 
ures of  the  Vienna  ministry,  chiefly  under  the  lead  of  the  '  old 
conservatives,'  and  in  peaceful  but  general  demonstrations  of 
the  people.  Of  the  latter  the  centennial  celebration  of  the  birth- 
day of  Francis  Kazinczy  (Oct.  27,  1859),  in  commemoration  of 
his  literary  activity,  his  martyrdom  for  freedom  being  under- 
stood, was  the  most  significant.  Soon  after  numerous  arrests 
took  place  throughout  the  country,  and  the  5th  Austrian  army 
corps  was  recalled  from  Italy  to  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
governor,  Archduke  Albert  (Dec.  1859)." 

To  those  familiar  with  encyclopaedic  requirements  and  stand- 
ards, it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  the  extraordinary 
comprehensiveness  and  lucidity,  the  unerring  scholarship  and 
closely-knit  texture  of  these  historical  essays. 


XI 
LIFE   IN   WASHINGTON 

The  completion  of  the  Cyclopsedia  left  Mr.  Heilprin  once 
more  without  adequate  means  of  subsistence,  and  he  resolved 
to  return  to  an  experiment  which  had  proved  fairly  successful 
in  Hungary,  but  which  is  generally  attended  with  far  greater 
difficulties  in  this  country  —  that  of  establishing  a  bookstore. 
He  chose  Washington  as  the  most  suitable  place  for  such  a 
purpose,  and  from  1863  to  1865  the  family  resided  there.  If 
the  experiment  proved  financially  disappointing,  it  at  least 
brought  Mr.  Heilprin  into  contact  with  congenial  spirits,  such 
as  Mr.  Spofford,  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  men  prominent  in  the  political  world  of  the  Capital 
sought  and  enjoyed  the  company  of  the  learned  bookseller.  Mr. 
Heilprin  had  interesting  conversations  with  Secretary  Seward 
and  Senator  Sumner,  and  became  particularly  well  acquainted 
with  Charles  A.  Dana,  then  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  and 
Count  Gurowski,  a  former  Polish  revolutionist  and  voluminous 
author  in  several  languages,  whose  eccentricities  of  temper 
alienated  from  him  not  a  few  friends  who  had  learned  to  value 
his  solid  endowments.  Mr.  Heilprin  enjoyed  also  his  contact 
with  the  physicist,  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  whom  he  often 
visited  at  the  Smithsonian  Institution  and  at  his  house. 

Even  while  engaged  in  the  book  business,  Mr.  Heilprin  con- 
tinued his  journalistic  labors.  In  1864  he  contributed  a  paper 
entitled  "  Nos  Amis  les  Cosaques  "  to  the  Boston  Continental 
Monthly,  a  periodical  founded  by  the  poet  Charles  G.  Leland, 
whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  in  Philadelphia.  In  July  of 
that  year  he  became  an  editorial  contributor  to  Col.  Forney's 
Washington  Chronicle,  which  was  considered  during  the  War 
the  inspired  organ  of  Lincoln's  administration.  Mr.  Heilprin's 
articles  in  the  Chronicle  showed  his  usual  wide  range  of  sub- 
jects. He  wrote  on  "  Transatlantic  Affairs,"  "  Moldo-Walla- 
chia,"  "  Eastern  Europe,"  "  The  Dano-German  War,"  "  The 


"A  VOICE  FROM  THE  SPRINGFIELD  TOMB"    193 

Slavic  World,"  "The  Trial  of  the  Thirteen  in  France," 
"Mexico,"  "The  Belgian  Elections,"  "The  Disturbances  in 
Geneva,"  "South-American  Affairs,"  "The  Polish  Emigra- 
tion," "Italy,"  "Austria,"  etc. 

After  he  was  compelled  to  close  the  doors  of  his  bookshop, 
Mr.  Heilprin  ventured  upon  an  even  more  hazardous  experi- 
ment. He  started  a  political  weekly,  The  Balance,  becoming 
his  own  editor  and  publisher.  "Not  a  single  copy  of  the  journal 
has  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  family,  but,  judging 
from  the  character  of  the  editorials  saved  in  Mr.  Heilprin's 
scrapbook,  the  enterprise  deserved  a  longer  career  than  was 
vouchsafed  to  it.  The  clippings  cover  only  the  two  months  — 
May  and  June,  1865  —  which  comprised  the  life  of  the  maga- 
zine. The  articles  concerning  domestic  subjects  are  mainly  in 
the  nature  of  solemn  warnings  to  the  American  people  to  be 
just  and  moderate  in  their  dealings  with  the  South.  Par- 
ticularly impressive  are  "  The  Clamor  for  Blood "  and  "  A 
Voice  from  the  Springfield  Tomb."  In  the  latter  article  Lincoln 
is  represented  as  saying: 

"  Already  I  feel  the  earth  teeming  with  fresh  vigor,  inspired 
by  reviving  labor.  And  the  sword  is  to  be  forged  into  a  plow- 
share, and  the  bayonet  into  a  pruning  hook;  and  the  metal 
of  the  cannon  will,  from  peaceful  steeples,  call  the  people  to 
labor  or  prayer,  and  no  more  thunder  desolation  over  blood- 
deluged  lands.  Already  I  hear  the  tramp  of  returning  armies ; 
the  men  of  the  North  going  north,  and  the  men  of  the  South 
going  south,  all  towards  their  homes,  no  more  against  foes; 
to  resume  the  work  of  production,  after  years  of  devastation. 

Yes,  I  hear  them  coming  north,  my  brave  boys,  returning 
as  veterans  and  citizens!  Oh!  that  I  cannot  see  them  return- 
ing, and  press  their  victorious  hands,  as  I  pressed  them  on  the 
gloomy  days  when  they  started  to  brave  a  thousand  perils  and 
to  fight  a  thousand  battles ;  the  hand  of  each,  from  that  modest 
man  who  led  them  all  to  victory,  and  is  the  chief  of  all ;  from 
him  who  on  the  fields  of  Pennsylvania  saved  my  capital  and 
the  North ;  from  him  who  near  the  banks  of  the  Chickamauga, 
when  heroes  fled,  stood  like  a  rock,  and  stemmed  the  tide  of 
disaster;  from  him,  who,  marching  and  remarching  over  vast 
extents,  made  war  history  almost  read  like  a  tale;  and  from 


194  MICHAEL   HEILPRIST 

him  who,  in  the  Valley,  was  an  army  himself,  and  down  South! 
was  the  last  victor;  from  all  these  down  to  the  humblest  of  my 
boys!  .  .  . 

Tramp,  tramp,  tramp;  they  are  approaching.  March  on, 
march  on!  towards  peace,  towards  lasting  peace,  among  our- 
selves, among  ourselves  and  with  others.  May  the  canker  of 
warlike  ambition  never  prey  on  your  hearts;  may  it  never 
infect  my  people. 

Or  should  passion  and  vanity,  and  the  voice  of  the  people's 
flatterers,  poison  and  destroy  all  our  fathers  built  and  we  de- 
fended? Will  these  men,  so  long  victorious  in  the  cause  of 
right,  be  deluded  into  fighting  for  conquest  and  plunder,  de- 
luded by  specious  appeals  in  the  name  of  their  country's  great- 
ness and  glory? 

O,  delusive  words,  full  of  idolatrous  venom!  Was  Rome 
great  when  it  trampled  Athens  and  burned  Jerusalem?  It 
was  great  when  Cincinnatus  left  the  plow  to  save  it,  and  then 
returned  to  the  plow.  Was  Babylon  great?  or  is  Switzerland 
little?  My  boys,  my  generals,  my  people,  beware  of  that 
venomous  chameleon  called  love  of  glory !  " 


XII 

LETTERS    TO   HIS   CHILDREN   AND   HIS 
BROTHER-IN-LAW 

If  Washington  proved  an  unprofitable  field  in  other  ways, 
it  offered  compensations  as  the  centre  of  political  interests. 
Mr.  Heilprin  and  the  entire  family  followed  the  march  of 
events  with  the  keenest  anxiety,  and  this  interest  was  not 
lessened  after  the  family,  in  the  spring  of  1866,  had  removed 
to  Yonkers,  !N".  Y.  It  was  his  habit  to  comment,  with  ani- 
mation and  in  an  informing  way,  upon  public  affairs,  but  in 
his  letters  to  his  children  he  rarely  touched  upon  events  of 
the  day.  The  necessity  of  sparing  his  eyes  imposed  brevity. 
There  has,  however,  been  preserved  a  letter  by  him  written  in 
1866  to  his  two  youngest  daughters,  Susan  and  Celia,  —  then 
on  a  visit  in  Washington,  —  commenting  at  length  upon  a 
speech  of  President  Johnson's  which  had  aroused  extraordinary 
interest.  The  first  annual  message  referred  to  was  at  that  time 
supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Secretary  Seward.  It  has 
since  been  ascribed  to  Bancroft.  The  letter  is  undated. 

"As  to  your  perplexity  concerning  President  Johnson's 
speech  and  policy,  I  am  not  able  fully  to  satisfy  your  desire 
for  enlightenment,  remote  as  I  am  from  the  seats  of  the  develop- 
ment which  must  determine  political  action,  as  well  as  from  the 
circles  in  which  our  rulers  deliberate.  But  I  think  that  I  can, 
without  bias  or  haste  in  judgment,  condemn,  on  the  one  side 
the  speech  —  its  tone,  in  general  and  particularly  some  of  its 
phrases  —  without,  however,  finding  it  half  as  atrocious  or 
abominable  as  many  declare  it  to  be,  and,  on  the  other,  assert 
his  policy,  as  expounded  in  the  annual  message,  in  the  veto 
message,  and  in  Gov.  Cox's  letter  (in  to-day's  papers)  to  be 
the  genuine  Seward-Lincolnian,  thoroughly  consistent  in  itself, 
as  loyal  —  if  not  as  philanthropic  —  as  any,  not  at  all  deserv- 


196  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

ing  of  objurgations,  and  as  much  entitled  to  a  careful  examina- 
tion and  friendly  consideration  as  any  other  scheme  of  recon- 
struction or  regeneration.  Whether  it  be  the  right  way  to 
choose  is  a  different  question.  I  believe  the  President  was  too 
harsh  on  Sumner,  less  so  on  Phillips,  who  declared  him  a 
traitor  first,  with  plenty  of  other  epithets,  and  perfectly  correct 
in  reference  to  Forney.  Stevens  he  was  certainly  wrong  in 
classifying  with  Sumner ;  neither  is  the  name  '  traitor '  ap- 
plicable to  him,  who  is  only  unscrupulous  and  foolish  as  a 
legislator.  The  great  misfortunte  of  the  President,  or  rather 
Mr.  Seward,  who  is  the  documentary  president,  is  that  their 
policy  is  supported  by  the  vilest  of  demagogues  and  the  lowest 
political  rabble  the  world  ever  produced.  But  to  make  in- 
ferences from  the  applauders  on  the  public  speaker  or  actor 
is  a  dangerous  thing,  especially  in  times  when  party  spirit  runs 
so  high  that  moderate  men  will  not  dare  to  form  a  centre,  and 
extremes  rule  the  hour.  But  to  call  Johnson  or  Seward  a 
Copperhead  is  just  what  Ujhazy  lately  did  in  regard  to  Deak 
and  the  Hungarian  diet.  Ten  years  ago  U.  would  have  been 
generally  applauded.  Years  hence,  such  a  way  of  talking 
of  J.  and  S.,  as  is  now  followed  by  the  Tribune,  f.  i.,  will  be 
treated  with  as  much  scorn  as  U.'s  letter  was.  In  times  of 
wild  agitation  either  Louis  XVI.  or  Lafayette,  Czartoryski  or 
Lelewel,  etc.  etc.  must  appear  as  monsters  to  the  bewildered 
spectators.  Thus  now  nobody  takes  into  consideration  that 
Johnson,  the  proud  Anglo-Saxon  Southerner,  never  thought  of 
fighting  the  South  and  risking  his  all  in  order  to  see  his  state 
disfranchised  after  victory,  himself  and  his  fellow-citizens  ruled 
by  military  intervention  from  abroad,  and  his  section  of  the 
country  threatened  with  Africanization ;  and  everybody  hastens 
to  forget  that  Seward  has  barely  escaped  death  at  the  hands  of 
those  of  whom  he  is  represented  as  so  very  fond. 

All  this,  dear  children,  I  wrote  only  for  yourselves,  to  con- 
tinue, in  part,  the  hints  I  used  to  give  you,  in  regard  to  the  man- 
ner I  approve  of  of  judging  public  men.  Policies  I  hardly 
venture  to  judge  myself,  whenever  the  question  is  vast  and  com- 
plicated. In  this  case  I  believe  a  great  part  of  what  is  said  by 
the  better  men  of  either  party,  and  that  whichever  policy  will 
prevail  is  doomed  to  be,  in  future,  almost  generally  condemned, 


TWO   STRIKING  LETTERS  197 

the  evil  being  so  extraordinary  that  no  such  transient  and  limited 
rulers  or  statesmen  as  ours  can  even  as  much  as  hope  to  succeed. 
Events  will  march,  and  the  laws  of  nature  will  decide,  but  not 
the  wisdom  of  politicians.  The  settlement  of  the  great  question 
of  races  on  the  continent,  begun  by  the  sword,  will  not  be  car- 
ried through,  I  believe,  by  platforms,  speeches,  and  editorials. 
The  '  wrath  of  man '  must  be  changed,  or  the  '  wrath  of  man ' 
will  finish  the  work.  Let  us,  however,  hope  for  the  best.  And 
when  not  much  good  can  immediately  be  expected,  let  us  amuso 
ourselves,  and  enlarge  our  views,  by  the  spectacle  of  warring 
factions,  contending  opinions,  and  more  or  less  useful  or  bril- 
liant exertions  of  the  mind.  This  spectacle,  dear  children, 
I  wish  you  to  enjoy  as  much  as  circumstances  allow,  calmly, 
with  '  charity  for  all,  malice  towards  none/  " 

While  still  in  Washington,  and  shortly  after  his  connection 
with  the  Nation  had  begun,  Mr.  Heilprin  wrote  one  or  two 
articles  for  the  short-lived  Round  Table.  The  editorial  on 
"  Otto  von  Bismarck  "  bears  the  general  characteristics  of  his 
contributions  to  the  Nation. 

The  poet  in  Mr.  Heilprin's  nature,  who  had  so  sympatheti- 
cally hailed  Garibaldi's  rising  of  1860,  was  contradicted  by  the 
statesman  and  historian,  who,  six  years  later,  about  two  months 
after  the  battle  of  Sadowa,  discountenanced  the  idea,  then 
broached  by  some  Hungarians  in  this  country,  of  instigating 
an  anti-Austrian  rising  in  Hungary.  He  expressed  himself 
as  follows  in  a  letter  to  his  brother-in-law,  M.  J.  Franklin  (the 
first  page  of  the  closely-written  letter  is  in  Hungarian ;  what  is 
quoted  is  the  English  continuation) : 

"  As  regards  our  dear  Hungary,  I  am  sorry  to  find  so  great 
a  difference  of  opinion  between  W.  [Washington]  and  N.  Y. 
circles.  However,  in  matters  of  expediency,  to  which  the  time- 
liness of  an  insurrection  undoubtedly  belongs,  people  will  always 
differ,  according  to  the  degrees  of  their  experience,  caution, 
boldness,  determination,  or  rashness,  which  must  necessarily 
vary.  On  my  part,  I  must  confess,  dear  Franklin,  that  my 
own  experience,  historical  studies,  and  individual  temper  have 
led  me  to  the  following  conclusions. 

1.    Out  of  twenty  risings,  for  independence  or  republican 


198  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

freedom,  but  unaided  or  unprepared,  one  succeeds,  witness 
Poland  under  Kosciuszko,  Chlopicki,  etc.,  Microslawski  (1846 
and  1848),  or  Langiewicz;  Italy  in  1820,  1821,  1847  (Sicily), 
1848  and  1849  (under  most  auspicious  circumstances)  ;  Spain 
from  1820  to  1865;  Ireland  in  1798  and  1848;  Schleswig- 
Holstein;  the  Sonderbund;  Bohemia,  Vienna,  Saxony,  Baden, 
etc.,  in  1848-9;  the  Secession  rebellion  (and  what  a  rebel- 
lion!), and  numberless  other  outbreaks  from  the  Volga  to  the 
Tagus. 

2.  Hungary,  since  the  princes  of  Transylvania  have  suc- 
cumbed,  has  failed  in  every  insurrection  from  Tb'kb'lyi  and 
Rakoczy  down  to  Kossuth,  and  has  had  only  '  bloodless  vic- 
tories,' as  in  1790  and  1823;    threatened  as  she  is  by  hostile 
Croats,  Rascians,  Serbs,  Wallachs,  Saxons,  etc.,  within,  and  by 
Russia  without,  she  cannot  afford  to  risk  experiments,  which 
might  not  only  lead  to  defeats  and  sufferings,  as  in  Italy  or 
Spain,  but  to  the  swamping  of  her  whole  nationality,  as  in 
Poland.     Bismarck,  Victor  Emanuel,   and  Napoleon  can  no 
more  be  trusted  than  perfidious  Hapsburg,  who  would  un- 
doubtedly have  yielded  to  any  terms  in  order  to  suppress  a 
revolution  (a  revolution  without  a  fortress,  without  arms,  with- 
out a  legal  head).  .  .  . 

3.  Neither  Prussia  (as  yet)  nor  Italy  desires  the  final  de- 
struction of  Austria,  the  former  dreading  a  revolutionary  Hun- 
gary and  Galicia,  the  latter  an  all-powerful  Germany,  while 
Russia  and  France  dislike  the  one  as  well  as  the  other. 

4.  Successful  insurrections  are  mainly  the  sudden  outbursts 
of  the  people  in  the  capitals  of  consolidated  states,  where  a  few 
determined  squads  or  even  individuals  can  change,  in  a  day, 
a  dynasty  or  form  of  government,  as  in  Rome,  Constantinople, 
or  Paris,  or  they  owe  their  consummation  to  foreign  interven- 
tion, as  in  Greece  or  Belgium. 

5.  A  so-called  revolutionary  doctrine  or  systematic  revolu- 
tionism is  justifiable  only  when  universal,  as  in  1848 ;   in  other 
times  it  is  no  more  than  fanatical  madness  or  recklessness,  the 
offspring  of  despair,  historical  ignorance,  or  selfish,  designing 


6.    Hungary  owes  her  national  existence  and  long  periods 
of  constitutional  freedom  to  her  avoiding  the  perils  into  which 


VIEWS   ON   POPULAK  RISINGS  199 

Poland,  for  instance,  so  often  plunges  herself  from  ungovern- 
able despair,  and  to  the  wonderful  spirit  of  unity  which  makes 
her  rise  like  one  man,  and,  if  necessary,  bide  her  time  with  the 
same  unanimity;  hence  her  great  leaders,  made  great  by  a 
disciplined  nation,  each  in  his  time,  Rakoczy,  Szechenyi,  Kos- 
suth,  or  Deak. 

7.  Revolutions  cannot  be  improvised  by  proclamations  from 
abroad,  and  must  have  a  base  of  operations  within,  or  be  car- 
ried in  by  invading  armies. 

8.  Italy  owes  her  deliverance  both  to  that  internal  base, 
Piedmont,  and  the  armies  of  France  (in  1859)  and  Prussia 
(in  1866);    with  400,000  men,  a  navy,  and  25  millions  of 
people  she  proved  unable  to  wrest  Venetia  from  Austria,  whose 
main  armies  were  far  away  in  the  north. 

9.  Kossuth  was  driven  to  his  last  failure  by  his  situation  in 
Italy  and  connections  with  her  statesmen ;  the  result  shows  how 
terribly  he  miscalculated  the  position." 


xin 

A  LETTEK  FKOM   CHARLES  ELIOT   NORTON  — 
MR.  HEILPRIN'S  ASSOCIATES  OF  THE  AMERI- 
CAN" CYCLOPAEDIA  — RELATIONS  WITH  W.  P. 
GARRISON  AND  E.  L.  GODKIN 

From  the  first,  Mr.  Heilprin's  contributions  to  the  Nation 
and  his  personality  greatly  impressed  the  editors.  In  August, 
1866,  Mr.  Garrison  wrote  to  Mr.  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  sug- 
gesting that  Mr.  Heilprin  be  invited  to  deliver  a  course  of  lec- 
tures at  the  Lowell  Institute.  To  this  Mr.  Norton  replied  in  a 
letter,  dated  Ashfield,  August  19, 1866,  which  Mr.  Garrison  sent 
to  Mr.  Heilprin,  and  which  is  among  those  preserved  by  him : 

"  I  am  much  interested  by  what  you  write  me  of  Mr.  Heil- 
prin. His  articles  in  the  Nation  have  given  evidence  of  varied 
and  uncommon  learning. 

He  is  just  the  man  to  be  invited  to  lecture  at  the  Lowell 
Institute,  if  his  abilities  fit  him  for  the  lecturer's  desk.  It  is 
difficult,  however,  always  to  get  the  right  appointments  made. 
...  I  will  see  that  Mr.  Heilprin's  name  and  qualifications  are 
brought  to  his  (Mr.  John  A.  Lowell's,  then  sole  Trustee  of  the 
Institute)  knowledge,  and  that  such  influence  as  may  be  used 
in  Mr.  Heilprin's  favor  is  exerted. 

But,  I  am  quite  confident  that  there  is  no  chance  for  obtain- 
ing an  invitation  for  Mr.  Heilprin  for  the  next  winter.  The 
courses  were  long  ago  arranged  for,  as  I  happen  to  know, 
having  been  interested  early  last  spring  in  securing  a  course 
for  Mr.  Squier.  At  that  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lowell,  and  under- 
stood from  him  that  Mr.  Squier's  name  filled  his  list  for  1867. 
Suppose  as  a  preparatory  step  Mr.  Heilprin  were  to  write  for 
the  North  American  a  paper  on  the  Hebrew  Literature  of  the 
present  century,  or  on  some  other  literary  subject  with  which  he 
feels  himself  familiar.  I  would  gladly  publish  it,  were  it  as 


SYMPATHY  WITH   FRANCE  201 

well  done  as  I  have  little  doubt  it  would  be,  and  it  might  be 
an  effective  instrument  in  obtaining  for  Mr.  Heilprin  a  course 
of  lectures  in  the  winter  of  1867-8." 

Mr.  Heilprin  did  not  act  upon  Mr.  Norton's  suggestion. 
Among  the  reasons  which  prevented  his  doing  so  was  doubtless 
a  certain  abiding  disinclination  to  undertake  anything,  however 
innocent  and  proper  in  itself,  which  might  seem  like  a  design  or 
merely  a  means  to  an  end.  He  would,  of  course,  have  been 
glad  to  write  for  the  North  American  Review  had  a  suitable 
subject  then  naturally  suggested  itself  to  him.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  wrote  many  years  afterwards  —  I  think  in  the 
eighties  —  a  review  of  some  book  or  books  on  Oriental  subjects. 

The  course  of  time  modified  Mr.  Heilprin's  views  concerning 
the  relations  between  Austria  and  Hungary.  He  welcomed 
most  cordially  the  Compromise  of  1867  —  the  work  of  Francis 
Deak,  whom  he  revered  as  he  did  no  other  statesman  of  modern 
times.  With  what  enthusiasm  he  spoke  of  the  new  Hungary 
and  its  future!  There  was,  on  such  occasions,  in  his  speech 
perhaps  a  shade  of  longing  to  take  a  part  in  the  reorganization 
of  the  country  whose  fortunes  he  had  shared  and  followed  so 
affectionately,  but  his  affection  for  the  country  in  which  he 
and  his  children  had  taken  such  firm  root  was  still  greater, 
and  he  never  seriously  discussed  the  idea  of  returning  to  Hun- 
gary. Had  he  gone  back,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  would 
have  made  for  himself  a  place  in  the  Hungarian  Parliament 
for  which  his  wonderful  rhetorical  abilities  and  his  statesman- 
like grasp  of  historical  questions  so  preeminently  fitted  him. 

,  It  has  been  seen,  from  the  tenor  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  editorial 
articles  on  the  war  of  1870-1,  how  fully  he  espoused  the  cause 
of  Germany,  but  this  feeling  did  not  proceed  from  lack  of  sym- 
pathy with  France  herself,  for  whose  misfortunes  he  held  the 
government  of  Napoleon  III.  mainly  responsible.  Mr.  Heil- 
prin had  an  intellectual  kinship  with  German  scholarliness  and 
solidity,  but  he  appreciated  none  the  less  the  world's  debt  to 
French  liberalism  and  French  literature.  Like  many  enlight- 
ened minds,  who  in  the  revolutionary  spirit  of  1848  saw  but 
the  triumph  of  the  ideas  of  1789,  Mr.  Heilprin  always  acknowl- 
how  deep  and  permanent  had  been  the  impress  on  him 


202  MICHAEL   HEILPKDT 

of  the  French  writers  who  glorified  the  heroes  of  the  Revo- 
lution. I  remember  hearing  Mrs.  Heilprin  relate  that,  on  the 
appearance  of  Lamartine's  Histoire  des  Girondins,  in  1847,  her 
husband,  in  the  company  of  some  equally  enthusiastic  Hungarian 
friends,  sat  up  all  night  reading  and  discussing  its  eloquent 
pages.  But  he  was  too  sound  a  historical  scholar  to  surrender 
himself  to  mere  charm  of  style,  and  his  reading  was  always 
marked  by  great  catholicity  of  taste.  The  sober  narrative  of 
Guizot  interested  him  as  much  as  the  picturesque,  if  one- 
sided, presentment  of  Thiers  or  the  fervid  rhetoric  of  Louis 
Blanc's  Histoire  de  Dix  Ans;  Macaulay  he  enjoyed  as  much  as 
Grote  or  Michelet.  He  had  a  particular  liking  for  Gervinus, 
as  he  had  for  Ranke  and  for  Gibbon.  Among  American  his- 
torians he  ranked  Prescott  as  by  far  the  greatest.  Of  the 
ancients,  he  admired  Thucydides  equally  with  Tacitus. 

When,  in  1872,  the  revision  of  Appleton's  Cyclopaedia,  under 
the  title  of  "  The  American  Cyclopaedia,"  was  projected,  the 
editors-in-chief,  George  Ripley  and  Charles  A.  Dana,  once 
more  sought  the  services  of  Mr.  Heilprin.  Their  estimate  of 
him  may  be  gathered  from  the  characterization  of  Mr.  Heilprin, 
in  O.  B.  Frothingham's  Life  of  George  Ripley,  as  "  the  omnis- 
cient, a  man  of  boundless  erudition,  master  of  all  languages, 
Eastern  and  Western."  Mr.  Heilprin  was,  as  one  of  the  four 
associate  editors  originally  selected,  entrusted  with  the  final 
revision  of  the  work,  after  the  proof-sheets  had  passed  the 
scrutiny  of  everyone  else.  He  was  privileged  to  make  any  cor- 
rections he  saw  fit  and  to  reject,  or  to  rewrite,  parts  of  any 
article  or  even  an  entire  article,  and  make  direct  suggestions  to 
the  writers  of  such  articles.  On  not  a  few  occasions  some  of 
the  prominent  contributors  sought  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Heilprin's 
suggestions  or  criticism  at  his  own  house,  for  as  a  special  con- 
cession to  him,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  was  there 
within  reach  of  his  own  ample  library,  he  carried  on  his  work 
at  home.  Throughout  the  years  of  revision,  he  was  in  his 
working  room  surrounded  by  his  children,  both  daughters  and 
sons,  his  faithful  and  efficient  assistants,  who  had  become  fa- 
miliar at  an  early  age  with  various  languages  and  the  details 
of  editorial  revision.  Numerous  indeed  were  the  occasions 
when  both  publishers  and  editors-in-chief  expressed  their  high 


RELATIONS   WITH   W.    P.    GARRISON       203 

appreciation  of  the  value  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  services.  Although.' 
usually  such  direct  communications  as  he  had  to  make  to 
Messrs.  Ripley  and  Dana  were  by  letter,  he  was  in  frequent 
personal  contact  with  them.  His  relations  with  them  were 
at  all  times  most  cordial.  He  was  particularly  intimate  with 
Mr.  Dana,  who  generally  preferred  to  converse  with  him  in 
German.  Of  the  Associate  Editors  he  was  closest  to  the  genial 
Robert  Carter,  a  man  of  varied  attainments  and  the  early  and 
intimate  friend  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  and  to  Francis  E. 
Teall,  whose  extraordinary  accuracy  and  thoroughness  in  criti- 
cal proof-reading,  which  went  far  beyond  the  ordinary  require- 
ments, Mr.  Heilprin  had  learned  to  admire  in  his  first  con- 
nection with  the  Cyclopaedia. 

He  gave  the  same  careful  revision  to  the  Condensed  Cyclo- 
paedia, in  four  volumes,  begun  after  the  completion  of  the  larger 
work  and  finished  in  September,  1877.  A  new  edition  of  the 
entire  Cyclopaedia  was  planned  in  1880,  but  after  some  pre- 
liminary work,  in  which  Mr.  Heilprin  shared,  the  idea  was 
abandoned. 

Lrf  •  ••"• " 

The  Nation,  during  all  the  years  when  Mr.  Heilprin  was 
kept  by  his  encyclopaedic  toil  from  sending  more  than  an  occa- 
sional contribution  to  its  columns,  was  eager  for  the  resumption 
of  his  connection  with  it.  More  than  once  Mr.  Garrison  wrote 
or  spoke  to  him,  good-humoredly  expressing  his  impatience  for 
articles  from  his  pen,  as  he  did  in  the  following  letter : 

New  York,  January  llth,  1875. 
DEAR  ME.  HEILPRIN  : 

I  have  just  received  your  son's  [Angelo's]  notice  of  the 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  and  shall  be  glad  to  use  it  next 
week.  Let  me  also  improve  this  opportunity  to  say  that  his 
notice  of  Huxley,  somewhat  abbreviated,  will  be  inserted  as 
soon  as  I  can  make  a  place  for  it.  We  were  never  in  such 
distress  for  room;  and  yet  I  am  looking  forward  to  the  time 
of  your  "  emancipation  "  and  the  beginning  of  your  Cyclopaedia 
series. 

With  heartiest  wishes  for  the  New  Year, 
Sincerely  yours, 

W,  P.  GARRISON. 


204  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

Both  Mr.  Godkin  and  Mr.  Garrison  were,  however,  too  sincere 
admirers  of  their  valued  contributor  not  to  wish  for  him,  after 
his  connection  with  the  Cyclopaedia  had  ceased,  a  sphere  wider 
and  more  remunerative  than  that  which  they  could  offer  him. 
He  had,  as  he  could  not  but  know  himself,  unusual  qualifica- 
tions for  a  professor's  chair  —  although  he  felt  that  the  want 
of  a  college  degree  might  stand  in  his  way  —  and  at  one  time 
it  seemed  as  though  that  of  biblical  literature  at  Harvard  were 
within  his  reach.  Mr.  Godkin  had  suggested  to  President  Eliot 
Mr.  Heilprin's  name  when,  in  1879,  that  chair  became  vacant, 
and  upon  Mr.  Eliot's  invitation,  Mr.  Heilprin  met  him  and 
Dr.  H.  W.  Bellows  one  evening  at  the  latter's  house,  in  New 
York,  where  a  tentative  discussion  of  matters  bearing  on  the 
purpose  of  the  interview  took  place.  For  reasons  unknown  to 
me  the  appointment  was  not  made,  but  I  may  say  that  Mr. 
Heilprin  considered  President  Eliot's  final  choice,  that  of 
Professor  C.  H.  Toy,  a  very  excellent  one.  In  one  way  or 
another,  Mr.  Heilprin's  name  was  more  than  once  on  the  lips 
of  men  in  want  of  just  such  co-operation  or  advice  as  he,  per- 
haps better  than  anyone  else,  was  able  to  give.  Under  date  of 
May  26,  1881,  Mr.  George  Bancroft  wrote  to  him  from 
Washington : 

MY  DEAR  SIB: 

Two  years  ago  our  friend,  Mr.  Ripley,  wrote  me  a  note 
inclosing  a  note  which  you  addressed  him.  I  hope  in  the 
course  of  this  season  to  go  upon  a  final  revision  of  my  his- 
tory, which  I  wish  to  purge  as  far  as  possible  of  error.  Is 
your  time  now  so  at  your  own  disposal  that  you  could  give  me 
your  aid  as  suggested  in  your  letter  to  Mr.  Eipley  of  March 
24th,  1879  ?  I  shall  remain  at  Washington  until  the  first  day 
of  June.  After  that  time  my  address  will  be  at  Newport,  R.  I. 
Yours  very  respectfully  and  truly, 

GEO.  BANCROFT. 

It  is  my  impression  that  some  further  correspondence  took 
place  between  Mr.  Bancroft  and  Mr.  Heilprin,  in  the  course 
of  which  Mr.  Heilprin's  son,  Louis,  was  mentioned  for  the 
work  Mr.  Bancroft  had  in  view.  In  any  case  nothing  came 
of  the  matter. 


XIV 

ME.  HEILPRIN'S  WOKK  FOR  THE  RUSSIAN 
REFUGEES 

The  year  1881  marked  an  important  change  in  Mr.  Heilprin's 
hitherto  peaceful  life.  In  that  year  the  fury  of  barbarous 
atrocities  drove  the  first  Jewish  refugees  from  Russia  to  these 
shores.  Mr.  Heilprin's  soul  was  stirred  to  its  depths.  No  one 
foresaw  more  clearly  than  he  the  probable  extent  of  the  perse- 
cution then  begun  and  the  need  of  wise  measures  for  the  relief 
of  its  victims.  There  was  here  much  sympathetic  talk  on  the 
part  of  Jews  and  Christians,  some  willingness  to  assist  the 
newcomers,  but  there  was  also  a  vague  dread  of  an  over- 
whelming influx  of  foreign  hordes  ill-fitted  for  American  con- 
ditions. The  task  before  the  Jewish  community  of  New  York 
was  indeed  one  to  call  for  the  wisest  philanthropy  and  for 
patriotic  and  practical  measures.  Mr.  Heilprin  had  for  many 
years  had  little  in  common  with  purely  Jewish  affairs.  He 
was  not  a  professing  Jew  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word.  He 
was  not  a  member  of  any  synagogue,  and  he  had  for  many  years 
conformed  in  his  home  life  to  none  of  the  ceremonies  pre- 
scribed by  the  Jewish  faith.  But  he  had  retained  all  his  old- 
time  interest  in  the  race,  gloried  in  its  achievements,  and 
deeply  felt  any  wrong  and  humiliation  which  Jews  anywhere 
suffered  for  their  faith  or  race. 

Among  the  early  refugees,  many  of  whom  sought  his  house, 
there  were  young  men  full  of  an  enthusiastic  determination  to 
show  to  the  world  that  the  persecuted  Jews  of  Russia  needed 
but  the  air  of  a  free  country  to  become  successful  tillers  of 
the  soil.  Mr.  Heilprin  shared  this  belief  and,  fully  realizing 
what  such  a  step  meant  to  him,  he  resolved  to  throw  himself, 
heart  and  soul,  into  the  cause  of  Jewish  agricultural  coloniza- 
tion. He  found  a  few  kindred  spirits  who  shared  his  enthusi- 


206  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

asm  and  readiness  for  self-sacrifice,  foremost  among  whom  was 
Dr.  Julius  Goldman,  a  young  lawyer,  who  throughout  the 
anxious  years  in  store  for  Mr.  Heilprin  was  his  devoted  and 
efficient  colahorer. 

In  March,  1882,  after  much  arduous  preliminary  work,  the 
Montefiore  Agricultural  Aid  Society  began  its  operation. 
Michael  Heilprin  was  its  secretary,  ex-Judge  M.  S.  Isaacs  the 
treasurer,  Julius  Goldman  the  controller.  Mr.  Heilprin  devoted 
all  his  time  to  the  cause  of  the  refugees.  The  collecting  of 
funds,  most  of  which  came  as  the  result  of  Mr.  Heilprin's 
personal  solicitation,  formed  but  a  small  part  of  his  efforts. 
In  addition  to  planning  and  caring  for  the  colonists,  Mr. 
Heilprin  was  the  leading  spirit  in  the  organization  which  was 
hurriedly  created  to  take  charge  of  the  incoming  flood  of 
Jewish  immigrants  of  whatever  kind.  For  months  he  spent 
many  hours  of  the  day  in  the  dingy  basement  office  in  State 
Street  which  served  as  the  headquarters  of  the  Aid  Society, 
devising  measures  for  the  housing  of  the  rapidly  increasing 
number  of  arrivals,  for  the  immediate  relief  of  the  needy,  and 
for  the  transportation  to  other  places  of  those  willing  and  able 
to  leave  the  city.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  situation  had  to  be 
explained,  in  their  own  language  and  dialect,  to  the  bewildered 
immigrants.  More  than  once,  during  the  hot  days  of  the  sum- 
mer of  1882,  and  in  the  stifling  atmosphere  of  the  State  Street 
office,  Mr.  Heilprin  had  to  point  out  to  the  hapless  mothers  of 
young  children  the  need  of  the' most  elementary  sanitary  rules; 
not  infrequently  he  was  compelled  to  argue  earnestly  with  the 
more  impatient  and  obstreperous  of  the  immigrants,  who  could 
not  or  would  not  always  understand  that  the  land  of  liberty 
was,  like  the  countries  of  the  old  world,  subject  to  laws  and 
restrictions  which  must  be  obeyed.  Perhaps  more  trying  than 
all,  he  had  to  overcome,  as  far  as  lay  in  his  power,  the  prejudice 
of  those  of  his  race  who  could  see  only  the  uncouth  aspects  of 
the  refugees  and  failed  to  recognize  the  idealism,  the  intellectual 
alertness,  and  the  various  latent  abilities  which  have  since,  in 
so  many  cases,  asserted  themselves  among  them  and  their 
descendants.  I  recall  an  instance  when,  at  a  meeting  of  promi- 
nent Hebrews,  after  some  inconsiderate  talk  about  Polish  and 
Russian  Jews,  Mr.  Heilprin  arose  and  quietly  said :  "  I  am  a 


JEWISH   COLONIES   FOUNDED  207 

Polish  Jew,  I  belong  to  that  despised  race."  An  impassioned 
appeal  to  the  better  feelings  of  the  audience  followed,  and  the 
effect  was  extraordinary. 

I  have  before  me,  as  I  write,  the  memorandum  book  which 
bears,  in  Mr.  Heilprin's  beautiful  handwriting,  the  names  of 
all  the  colonies,  "  founded  or  aided  by  the  Montefiore  Agri- 
cultural Aid  Society  (formerly  New-Odessa  Fund)."  They 
were  as  follows: 

New  Odessa,  in  Douglas  Co.,  Oregon. 

Cremieux,  in  Aurora  Co.,  Dakota. 

Bethlehem-Judah,  in  Davison  Co.,  Dakota. 

Carmel,  in  Cumberland  Co.,  New  Jersey. 

Montefiore,  in  Pratt  Co.,  Kansas. 

Lasker,  in  Ford  Co.,  Kansas. 

Hebron,  in  Barber  Co.,  Kansas. 

Gilead,  in  Comanche  Co.,  Kansas. 

Touro,  in  Finney  Co.,  Kansas. 

Leeser,  in  Finney  Co.,  Kansas. 

AN  APPEAL  TO  THE  JEWS 

Many  were  the  disappointments  that  awaited  these  colonists, 
but  Mr.  Heilprin  and  his  associates  kept  up  a  stout  heart. 
In  November,  1883,  they  issued  a  stirring  appeal,  from  Mr. 
Heilprin's  pen,  to  the  Jews  of  the  United  States,  in  which 
they  set  forth  the  rise,  scope,  and  aims  of  the  Montefiore  Agri- 
cultural Aid  Society  and  thus  described  the  conditions  of  the 
colonies  established: 

"  Very  shortly  after  the  arrival  of  a  large  number  of  Russian 
refugees  in  this  country,  some  twenty  months  ago,  we  became 
cognizant  of  the  fact,  that,  among  the  many  whose  misfortune 
and  misery  appealed  to  the  benevolence  of  their  more  fortunate 
brethren,  there  were  not  a  few  whose  firm  determination  or 
ardent  desire  to  devote  themselves  to  agricultural  pursuits,  in 
the  land  which  was  to  become  their  new  home,  deserved  special 
attention.  There  were  elderly  men  who  had  tasted  all  the 
wretchedness,  and  had  felt  the  shame,  of  Jewish  trading  life 
in  Russia ;  but  side  by  side  with  them,  strenuous  youths  whom 
a  suddenly  awakened  Jewish  enthusiasm  had  led  to  the  fixed 


208  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

purpose  of  becoming  the  pioneers  of  their  down-trodden  and 
decried  people  in  a  field  of  natural,  useful,  and  redeeming 
activity.  Some  of  these  men  were  enthusiastic  dreamers,  others 
were  equally  clear-sighted  and  resolute;  some  had  nothing  to 
lose,  others  were  ready  to  sacrifice  to  their  ideal  alluring  per- 
sonal chances  and  lucrative  careers  formerly  entered  upon. 
Their  determination,  the  end  in  view,  appealed  to  our  sym- 
pathy, and  we  did  not  refuse  our  help. 

We  devoted  our  first  attention  to  an  organized  association 
of  capable  and  well  educated  young  men  from  South  Eussia, 
chiefly  from  Odessa  and  its  environs.  We  formed  a  small  Com- 
mittee for  the  foundation  of  a  colony  to  be  called  New  Odessa. 
It  was  no  light  task  to  collect  means  for  this  object,  at  a  time 
when  every  day  brought  into  our  port  vessels  thronged  with 
refugees,  whose  hunger  and  want  of  shelter  pressed  every  other 
claim  upon  public  charity  into  the  background.  We  had  also 
to  contend  with  an  anti-Russian  prejudice,  an  outgrowth  of 
ignorance  and  self-over-estimation  kindred  to  anti-Semitism. 
But  few  understood  the  language,  the  sentiments,  the  aims  and 
inclinations  of  the  strangers.  But  few  would  believe  that 
among  the  wrecks  of  distant  communities  which  a  storm  of 
persecution  had  driven  to  our  shores,  there  was  material  for 
construction  which  might  became  an  honor  to  this  country,  and 
to  all  Israel.  The  misery  which  made  its  appearance  in  our 
thoroughfares  offered  an  aspect  far  from  attractive.  Its  cries 
of  impatience  were  disturbing  sounds.  The  resignation  and 
self-helping  efforts  of  the  most  modest  and  patient  sufferers 
escaped  attention.  The  offences  of  the  few  were  charged  upon 
the  multitude.  Prejudice  bred  prejudice ;  an  unbrotherly  treat- 
ment produced  rancor  and  spite,  together  with  despondency. 
Many  a  small  gift  was  offered  with  rudeness,  some  generous 
help  was  requited  with  ingratitude.  The  first  attempts  to  found 
an  agricultural  colony  (in  Louisiana)  failed  in  consequence 
of  hasty  action  and  an  improper  choice  of  the  locality.  Public 
benevolence  limited  itself  to  offering  sustenance  and  occasional 
aid,  which  required  immense  sums.  Only  when  dire  necessity 
demanded  the  removal  of  many  of  the  unfortunates  from  the 
overcrowded  city  districts,  were  colonizing  attempts  on  a  larger 
scale  made  by  the  Hebrew  Emigrant  Aid  Society  —  in  the 


AN   APPEAL    TO   THE    JEWS  209 

States  of  New  Jersey  and  Colorado  —  partly  with  means  ob- 
tained from  Europe.  A  great  deal  was  sacrificed,  with  little 
faith. 

Notwithstanding  these  difficulties  we  succeeded  —  thanks  to 
the  enlightened  generosity  of  single  sympathizers  —  in  carrying 
out  the  colonization  of  the  Society  to  whom  we  had  offered  our 
aid.  Travels  of  exploration  and  various  other  efforts  were  re- 
quired, but  the  strenuous  perseverance  of  our  proteges  lightened 
the  execution,  and  a  year  had  hardly  elapsed  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  undertaking  when  a  goodly  number  of  Russian- 
Jewish  youths  completed  the  foundation  of  New  Odessa  Colony 
in  the  State  of  Oregon,  near  its  southern  border  and  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  money  which  we  collected  for  the  purpose  we  used 
for  transportation  and  the  purchase  of  a  farm  of  seven  hundred 
and  sixty  acres,  of  horses,  implements,  etc.,  but  the  maintenance 
of  the  Association  has  to  this  day  entailed  upon  us  no  expense 
whatever.  The  young  men  have  done  a  great  deal  of  hard  work, 
their  zeal  has  not  abated,  and  the  future  of  the  colony  is  prom- 
ising. It  is  able  to  maintain  itself  in  spite  of  trying  privation 
and  scantiness  of  means  —  even  if  no  further  aid  whatever  is 
afforded  it ;  generous  assistance  could  rapidly  make  it  flourish- 
ing, and  promote  its  expansion.  It  now  furnishes  the  Oregon 
and  California  Railroad  —  which  traverses  it  —  with  wood  for 
fuel  from  its  woodlands,  and,  if  possessed  of  the  necessary 
steam-saw  machinery,  could  also  supply  that  railroad  with  the 
sleepers  required  for  its  extension. 

Even  before  this  colony  was  called  into  life  in  the  remotest 
Northwest  of  the  Union,  we  succeeded  in  establishing  a  few  other 
refugees  in  the  wonderfully  prosperous  northern  Territory  of 
Dakota.  Here,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mitchell  and  Mount 
Vernon  —  in  the  southeast  of  the  Territory  —  two  families 
returned  from  the  wrecked  Louisiana  Colony,  with  some  friends 
who  followed  them  from  Russia,  had  settled,  unaided,  on 
*  homestead '  lands.  These  men,  who  devoted  to  their  work  an 
indomitable  energy  and  the  remnant  of  their  fortune,  were 
joined  by  a  number  of  others,  and  soon  two  colonies  arose  near 
each  other;  Cremieux  and  Bethlehem- Judah.  Some  aid  was 
obtained  from  the  Hebrew  Emigrant  Aid  Society,  as  well  as 
from  European  Associations.  Further  to  the  northwest,  a  col- 


210  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

ony  was  founded  in  the  same  Territory,  near  Bismarck,  by  Jew- 
ish sympathizers  in  the  City  of  St.  Paul ;  another  was  founded 
in  the  State  of  Kansas,  by  Cincinnatians ;  another,  by  Balti- 
moreans,  on  the  Rappahannock,  in  Virginia.  Hard  was  the 
beginning  everywhere,  as  was  the  winter  in  which  the  settlers, 
poorly  clad  and  poorly  housed  as  they  were,  spent  the  first 
months  of  their  farming  life  on  uncultivated  soil.  Worse  still 
was  the  situation  of  such  scattered  agriculturalists  as  had  gone 
to  remote  parts  without  a  plan  and  without  aid.  When  the 
Hebrew  Emigrant  Aid  Society  dissolved,  in  the  spring  of  this 
year,  the  Louisiana  Colony  had  long  disappeared;  that  of  Co- 
topaxi,  in  Colorado,  was  breaking  up ;  and  Alliance  (near  Vine- 
land)  and  Estelleville,  in  New  Jersey,  were  in  a  chaotic 
condition. 

The  situation,  in  general,  was  then  a  greatly  disheartening 
one.  Only  from  Oregon  and  Dakota  came  some  rays  of  hope. 
But  we  had  had  too  many  occasions  to  admire  the  firmness  and 
enthusiasm  of  many  of  the  refugees  who  devoted  themselves  to 
agriculture,  now  to  give  up  all  hope  of  a  turn  for  the  better  and 
abandon  our  efforts.  We,  therefore,  resolved  to  keep  up  our 
little  organization,  and,  having  accomplished  our  task  in  Ore- 
gon, to  bestow  the  little  help  we  could  afford  on  particularly 
hard  struggling  settlers  in  southeastern  Dakota  and  New 
Jersey.  The  ex-President  of  the  Hebrew  Emigrant  Aid  So- 
ciety and  some  of  his  former  associates  continued  to  be  active 
for  the  benefit  of  Alliance  (the  '  Vineland  colony  ')  and  Estelle- 
ville; the  colonies  in  northern  Dakota,  in  Kansas,  and  Vir- 
ginia were  maintained  by  their  respective  founders  and  pro- 
tectors. The  colony  in  Cotopaxi,  however,  broke  up  entirely. 
Nor  could  that  of  Estelleville  be  saved.  But  a  smaller  settle- 
ment in  the  same  region,  at  Beaver  Dam  in  southern  New 
Jersey,  was  preserved  by  our  efforts,  and  we  also  found  means 
of  providing  for  some  young  men  who  were  anxious  to  share 
the  agricultural  toils  of  the  colonists  in  southeastern  Dakota. 
Others  flocked  thither  without  any  assistance.  The  most  mu- 
nificent protector  of  the  refugees  in  this  city  planted  a  large 
family  on  the  same  soil.  The  late  spring  was  succeeded  by  a 
delightful,  bounteous  summer.  Hope  revived,  and  with  it  came 
fresh  energy.  The  value  of  the  homesteads  obtained  from  the 


AN  APPEAL   TO   THE   JEWS  211 

American  Government  for  a  nominal  price  rose  beyond  all  ex- 
pectation. The  willingness  and  capacity  for  labor  of  the  Rus- 
sian colonists  met  with  general  acknowledgment ;  the  misery  of 
their  brethren  in  the  cities  had  been  diminished  or  partly  van- 
ished out  of  sight;  ability  and  steadiness  had  found  their 
reward;  a  better  sentiment  began  to  prevail  everywhere,  the 
helpers  felt  happier,  the  helped  became  more  grateful.  New 
collections  for  Alliance,  with  the  object  of  propagating  manu- 
facturing industry  there,  proved  an  increased  readiness  to  assist 
the  toilers.  A  decidedly  friendly  and  humane  disposition  WEB 
everywhere  evinced  by  the  non-Jewish  neighbors  of  these  vic- 
tims of  persecution.  The  hardships  of  their  present  have  not 
ceased  to  be  severe,  but  the  future  has  ceased  to  appear  hope- 
less and  dark. 

The  general  situation  of  the  Russian  colonies  has,  indeed, 
improved  beyond  all  our  expectations  within  the  last  few  months. 
The  thought  is  highly  gratifying  that  Jewish  agricultural  colo- 
nies have  taken  root  in  the  most  diverse  parts  of  this  vast  coun- 
try; that  the  settlers  of  New  Odessa,  in  Oregon,  have  main- 
tained themselves  by  their  own  labor  alone  for  more  than  a 
year;  that  several  Slavic  Russians,  prompted  by  an  enlightened 
feeling  of  patriotic  sympathy,  have  followed  them  from  the  At- 
lantic shore  to  their  distant  Pacific  home  —  an  incident  which 
forms  one  of  the  brightest  pages  in  the  annals  of  the  Jewish 
exodus  from  Russia;  that  the  Alliance  (or  Vineland)  colony 
already  embraces  seventy  families ;  that  in  the  southeastern  dis- 
trict of  Dakota  which  includes  Cremieux  and  Bethlehem- Jud ah 
the  Russian-Jewish  settlers  are  in  possession  of  more  than  nine 
thousand  acres  of  excellent  farming  land ;  and  that  hundreds  of 
other  refugees  are  anxiously  looking  forward  to  the  moment 
when  they  might  be  able  to  join  their  friends  on  the  farms, 
among  them  men  reared  in  easy  circumstances  and  now  pursu- 
ing remunerative  occupations  in  cities.  Should  the  colonies 
continue  to  advance  on  the  road  to  prosperity,  thousands  of 
others  would  be  induced  to  strive  for  the  same  object.  We  have 
enabled  many  a  struggling  refugee  to  attain  this  ardently  de- 
sided  end,  and  we  are  still  ready  to  devote  a  portion  of  our 
limited  time  and  strength  to  this  cause,  which  is  so  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  the  best  of  the  Jewish  immigrants;  but  the  means 


212  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

which  are  here  at  our  disposal  are  far  from  being  adequate  to 
the  task  before  us.  Too  many  charitable  sacrifices  are  still  de- 
manded here  daily  for  the  Kussian  poor,  aged,  and  sick,  widows 
and  orphans;  nor  has  the  public  fully  learned  to  appreciate 
the  importance  of  preserving,  expanding,  and  multiplying  the 
Jewish  agricultural  colonies  in  this  land  of  unlimited  religious 
freedom  and  boundless  activity. 

We,  therefore,  address  ourselves  to  you  with  a  petition  for 
help  and  co-operation.  We  know  there  is  no  lack  of  sympathy 
for  this  cause  in  the  circles  in  which  you  move  and  your  philan- 
thropy acts;  but  the  position  of  affairs  here,  the  difficulties 
under  which  the  Russian  refugees  labor  in  this  country,  the 
noble  efforts  of  some  of  them,  and  the  expectations  for  the  com- 
mon weal  of  the  Jewish  people  which  can  be  based  on  such  at- 
tempts cannot  be  sufficiently  known  in  your  country,  and  we 
deem  it  our  duty  to  contribute  toward  a  clear  elucidation  of 
them.  The  whole  of  this  movement  for  self-regeneration,  to 
which  old  degradation,  disappointed  hope  of  deliverance  through 
freedom  in  the  fatherland,  and  a  barbarous  persecution  have 
given  rise,  is  an  entirely  novel,  a  magnificent,  phenomenon  in 
the  history  of  modern  Judaism.  By  strengthening  and  foment- 
ing this  movement  grand  results  can  yet  be  achieved.  And  is  it 
not  a  duty,  is  it  not  commanded  by  the  said  circumstances  of 
the  time,  which  has  witnessed  such  a  terrible  revival  of  medise- 
valism,  to  make  a  vigorous  effort  to  foster  the  good  which  so  un- 
expectedly springs  from  a  source  of  evil  ?  And  does  not  our 
Republic  offer  the  best  and  broadest  field  for  such  efforts  of 
Jewish  philanthropy  and  foresight  ?  " 

RUSSIAN-JEWISH  COLONIES 

A  year  later,  October  25,  1884,  the  New  York  Evening  Post, 
in  an  article  on  the  Montefiore  Agricultural  Aid  Society,  com- 
mented upon  the  surprising  fact  that  the  scanty  means  of  the 
Society  proved  sufficient,  and  that  none  of  its  colonizing  enter- 
prises had  failed  up  to  that  time,  while  others,  undertaken  with 
ampler  resources,  had  proved  abortive.  This  favorable  result, 
as  the  article  justly  pointed  out,  was  mainly  due  to  the  freedom 
in  the  choice  of  the  personnel  which  the  smaller  volunteer  so- 


FATE    OF    THE    COLONIES  213 

ciety  enjoyed,  while  the  Hebrew  Emigrant  Aid  Society  was  op- 
pressed by  the  weight  of  its  daily  duties  and  the  care  of  a  motley 
mass  of  refugees  clamoring  for  bread.  The  rule  of  the  Monte- 
fiore  Society  was  to  select  for  agriculturists  only  earnest  young 
men  and  small  families,  and  to  help  only  those  able  to  help 
themselves.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  recall  some  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  these  colonies.  The  Montefiore  Aid  Society  never 
endeavored  to  make  converts  for  any  religious  or  social  doc- 
trine. Its  object  was  to  foster  agricultural  pursuits  among 
Jewish  immigrants ;  but  it  left  the  choice  of  place  and  the  in- 
ternal organization  of  each  colony  to  the  settlers.  It  held  no 
lien  upon  the  property  furnished  to  the  colonists,  relying  for 
its  reimbursement  only  on  the  honor  of  the  colonists,  if  success 
crowned  their  efforts.  Every  settler  was  at  liberty  to  leave  his 
post  without  explanation  or  notice.  New  Odessa  was  the  only 
colony  based  on  communistic  principles.  There  was  a  great 
variety  of  religious  views  among  the  colonists.  Mutual  tolera- 
tion existed  everywhere,  in  spite  of  the  diverse  elements  that 
made  up  some  of  the  colonies.  Orthodoxy  prevailed  at  Carmel, 
and  a  glowing  racial  spirit  animated  the  colony  at  Montefiore. 

The  first  of  all  the  Russian-Jewish  colonies  had  been  started 
independently  of  the  Montefiore  Aid  Society.  Its  leader  was 
Herman  Rosenthal,  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  men  who 
left  Russia  in  1881.  The  ill-chosen  site  of  this  colony,  in  Cata- 
houla  Parish,  Louisiana,  on  the  Washita  River,  made  its  failure 
inevitable.  Mr.  Rosenthal,  who  later  became  a  highly  valued 
colaborer  of  Mr.  Heilprin  in  colonization  matters,  was,  after 
returning  from  Louisiana,  the  leader  of  the  colonies  in  south- 
eastern Dakota;  these,  after  two  or  three  years  of  relative 
prosperity,  presented,  in  the  winter  of  1885-86,  a  gloomy 
picture.  Failure  of  crops,  and  insufficiency  of  means,  had  done 
their  fatal  work,  and  the  number  of  colonists  had  dwindled  to 
a  handful.  In  vain  had  Mr.  Heilprin  tried  to  infuse  new  life 
into  the  discouraged  colonists;  himself  in  impaired  health,  as 
the  result  of  his  superhuman  efforts,  he  was  compelled,  in  the 
spring  of  1884,  to  leave  New  York  and  seek  comparative  rest 
and  retirement  in  the  village  of  Summit,  New  Jersey,  in  a  region 
whose  natural  beauty  had  long  attracted  him.  But  even  there 
he  was  pursued  by  anxiety  for  the  fate  of  those  in  whom  he 


214  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

had  taken  such  a  deep  interest.  Equally  with  him,  Dr.  Julius 
Goldman  retained  his  zeal  in  the  cause  during  all  the  years  when 
every  nerve  had  to  be  strained  to  provide  for  the  needs  of  the 
newcomers,  as  well  as  of  those  who,  heartsick,  returned  from  the 
colonies,  and  cast  about  for  new  means  of  subsistence.  During 
the  early  days  of  the  immigration,  when  bright  hope  animated 
the  choicest  spirits  among  the  Russian  Jews,  and  when  Mr. 
Heilprin's  own  enthusiasm  was  at  its  height,  Emma  Lazarus, 
a  gifted  poet  and  noble  woman,  was  an  untiring  advocate,  in 
pen  and  person,  of  the  cause  of  colonization.  Mr.  Jacob  H. 
Schiff,  among  other  prominent  Hebrews,  actively  aided  Mr. 
Heilprin's  labors.  Among  those  of  another  faith,  Mr.  Henry 
Villard,  whom  Mr.  Heilprin  had  long  known,  furthered  the 
cause  of  the  refugees  by  securing  for  them  cheap  transporta- 
tion to  Oregon. 

A  GBEAT  SERVICE  TO  THE  JEWISH  CAUSE 

Only  four  years  more  were  vouchsafed  to  Mr.  Heilprin  in  his 
rural  abode.  He  had  never  cherished  any  illusion  as  to  the  price 
he  had  to  pay  for  his  share  in  the  interest  of  his  unfortunate 
kinsmen.  His  health  was  shattered,  and  in  spite  of  his  habitual 
cheerfulness,  his  spirit  saddened.  But  he  was  able  to  render 
a  last  and  permanent  service  to  the  cause  of  Judaism.  The 
American  Minister  to  Turkey,  Mr.  Oscar  S.  Straus,  wrote  to 
Mr.  Heilprin,  in  the  winter  of  1887,  suggesting  that  a  full 
statement  from  him  concerning  the  condition  of  the  Russian- 
Jewish  immigrants  in  the  United  States  might  influence  Baron 
de  Hirsch  in  extending  to  them  his  wide  benefactions.  Mr. 
Heilprin's  reply,  written  in  January,  1888,  four  months  be- 
fore his  death,  was  as  follows : 

"  Everyone  interested  in  the  fate  of  our  race  will  rejoice  at 
the  thought  that  the  noble  enthusiasm  which  so  recently  inspired 
the  grandest  act  of  benevolence  recorded  in  the  annals  of  history 
is  animating  the  benefactor,  after  spreading  his  blessings  over 
the  East,  to  look  for  a  new  field  of  blissful  activity  beyond  the 
western  sea. 

America  is  rich  in  resources,  wealth,  energy,  and  freedom, 


A  GREAT  SERVICE  TO  THE  JEWISH  CAUSE    215 

which  is  creative  and  fertilizing.  Those  Israelites  who  have 
found  here  their  place  require  no  help  from  abroad,  no  foreign 
direction,  nor  encouragement.  But  a  score  of  thousands  of 
their  brethren  are  wafted  every  year  to  the  shores  of  this 
country,  mostly  in  a  helpless  condition,  and  many  of  them  have 
to  pass  through  an  ordeal  of  misery  and  despondency  before 
they  find  their  place.  There  aid,  encouragement,  and  direction 
are  needed,  but  very  scantily  forthcoming.  The  new  immigrants 
are  not  greeted  with  open-hearted  sympathy  by  those  who  pre- 
ceded them,  but  looked  upon  with  more  or  less  aversion,  as  in- 
truders, likely  to  add  to  the  unwholesome  elements  of  the 
population. 

Nor  are  the  suspicions  unfounded.  The  mass  of  the  new  im- 
migrants came  from  countries  in  which  the  Jews  are  cramped 
in  their  development  by  mediaeval  restrictions  and  superstitions, 
internal  as  well  as  external;  they  bring  along  a  load  of  igno- 
rance, uncouth  habits,  and  crude  notions  —  partly  obsolete  and 
partly  most  modernly  destructive  —  which  apparently  unfits 
them  to  become  useful  and  successful  members  of  society.  The 
large  fund  of  intelligence  and  ardor  for  good  which  many  of 
them  carry  with  them  is  generally  overlooked,  or  rather  remains 
long  unperceived.  The  stream  of  immigration  is  constant,  and 
there  is  fear  of  its  ultimately  swamping  the  goodly  earlier  settle- 
ments of  Israel  in  the  New  World. 

The  prejudice  and  the  fear  are  both  exaggerated.  The  Ameri- 
can Union  could  harbor  all  the  seven  or  eight  million  Jews  that 
there  are  in  the  world,  and  absorb  them  all  in  a  harmless  way. 
But  not  only  does  the  selfish  or  patriotic  susceptibility  of  the 
already  established  Jews  revolt  at  the  thought  of  such  a  con- 
summation, but  the  most  philanthropic  and  enlightened  observer 
must  desire  that  the  influx  of  Jews  from  Europe  be  moderated 
instead  of  accelerated.  Only  thus  could  the  boundless  amount 
of  suffering  to  which  immigrants  en  masse  fall  a  prey  be  obvi- 
ated, and  the  necessary  process  of  assimilation,  after  healthy 
distribution,  take  place. 

But,  unfortunately,  the  only  natural  check  to  ptecipitate 
immigration  is  that  very  suffering,  the  news  of  which  is  carried 
by  letters  or  by  returning  emigrants  to  the  countries  from  which 
the  flood  springs.  To  establish  large  institutions  promising  to 


216  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

afford  guidance  and  help  to  the  strenuous,  and  shelter  and  care 
to  the  luckless,  would  be  adding  to  the  evil,  instead  of  diminish- 
ing it.  However  richly  endowed  such  institutions  might  be  — 
and  the  Israelitish  benefactor  above  alluded  to  Has  taught  us 
to  believe  in  benevolence  on  a  gigantic  scale  —  their  alleviating 
power  would  be  out  of  proportion  to  the  increase  in  the  demand 
for  help  which  the  very  fact  of  their  existence  would  create. 
For  every  hundred  immigrants  successfully  aided,  a  thousand 
others  would  arrive,  deluded  by  a  deceptive  hope  of  help,  which 
they  would  believe  was  vouchsafed  to  the  least  fit  to  struggle  for 
their  own  existence.  Let  it  be  known,  for  instance,  that  work- 
shops have  been  opened  specially  for  Jews  from  Russia,  Galicia, 
or  Roumania,  and  for  every  strong  and  energetic  young  man 
who  would  thus  be  saved  from  peddling  or  despair,  a  score  of 
poor  people,  devoid  alike  of  experience  and  ability,  would  wend 
their  way  from  Kovno,  Brody  or  Botusharry  to  Hamburg  and 
New  York.  Let  it  be  believed  that  land  and  implements  are 
given  gratis  to  Jewish  agriculturists,  and  there  will  be  a  new 
exodus  from  southern  Russia,  resulting,  after  a  multitude  of 
efforts  and  experiments  in  the  right  direction  but  without  the 
needed  aptness,  in  a  vast  addition  to  the  peddling  population  of 
our  large  cities. 

Jewish  charity  has  always  justly  been  praised  —  perhaps 
slightly  beyond  its  merits.  Even  Antisemites  would  hardly  dare 
to  deny  it.  It  is  constantly  doing  a  great  deal  of  good.  But 
it  has  also  been  productive  of  evil  consequences.  It  has  fostered 
a  habit  of  relying  upon  individuals  and  congregational  insti- 
tutions, and  in  proportion  weakened  the  instincts  of  manliness, 
self-reliance,  and  honor.  It  is  time  to  moderate  this  deleterious 
influence  of  a  noble  sentiment  and  practice.  Jewish  institutions 
ought  to  be  founded  on  the  principle  of  aiding  those  who  aid 
themselves,  of  promoting  and  rewarding  independent  efforts  and 
successful  energy  —  not  by  gifts  and  distinctions,  but  by  afford- 
ing means  for  enlarging  the  scope  of  honorable  efforts  and  the 
field  of  manly  energy.  I  do  not  mean  the  widening  of  the 
sphere  of  ambition  —  that  is  but  too  wide  already  among  us. 
We  have  too  many  artists,  scholars,  politicians,  '  doctors '  of 
every  description,  lawyers,  writers.  I  mean  the  promoting  of 
the  efforts  of  those  whose  object  is  to  achieve  a  livelihood  and 


A  GEEAT  SERVICE  TO  THE  JEWISH  CAUSE    217 

respectable  position  among  honest  fellowmen  by  the  diligent  and 
useful  labor  of  their  hands.  Let  such  aid  be  granted  to  me- 
chanics and  especially  agriculturists  as  would  enable  them  to 
extend  the  scope  of  their  labor,  and  ultimately  serve  as  en- 
couraging examples  to  beginners  in  the  same  lines.  A  bank  of 
credit  which  would  advance  to  men  established  by  their  own 
efforts,  and  able  to  prove  a  tolerable  advance  in  their  occupa- 
tions, sums  sufficient  for  the  purchase  of  better  tools,  imple- 
ments, machines,  teams,  cattle,  etc.,  than  those  with  which  they 
work  —  on  good  mortgage  and  at  the  lowest  rate  of  interest  — 
appears  to  me  the  most  important  desideratum.  Numberless 
families  now  relying  on  labor  which  is  but  a  drudgery  without 
a  prospect  for  the  future,  and  constantly  tempted  to  look  for  a 
more  profitable  though  less  honorable  employment,  would  by 
such  help  be  strengthened,  encouraged  and  finally  made  pros- 
perous. The  prosperity  of  the  thus  assisted  would  lead  others 
to  follow  in  the  same  paths  of  manly  activity. 

Agriculture  is  the  field  of  labor  for  which  the  Jew  is  least 
well  prepared,  or  rather  fitted  by  education  and  example.  It 
is  needless  to  state  the  reasons  why  this  is  the  case.  The  whole 
history  of  the  people  in  its  dispersion  proclaims  them.  But 
nothing  is  more  desirable  than  that  a  large  number  of  Jews 
should  be,  not  induced,  but  helped  to  follow  agricultural  pur- 
suits. Inducing  to  do  it  by  promises  or  direct  pecuniary  aid 
would  be  but  multiplying  victims  of  delusion  and  cruel  failures. 
There  are,  however,  numerous  immigrants  in  this  country  who 
can  hardly  be  kept  by  warnings  from  making  risky  attempts  at 
farming  with  their  own  scanty  means.  It  is  especially  the  Eus- 
sian  portion  of  the  Jewish  immigration  which  contains  really 
available  material  for  agricultural  colonies.  There  are  thou- 
sands of  Eussian  immigrants  who  loathe  peddling  and  all  kin- 
dred occupations,  and  nourish  even  an  exaggerated  view  of  the 
excellence  of  farming  labor  and  farming  life.  Of  the  various 
colonies  founded  by  such  Eussian  volunteers,  a  few  have  suc- 
ceeded, and  these  ought  to  be  extended  by  advancements  of 
means  to  their  best  deserving  members  in  the  shape  of  well- 
secured  loans.  They  are  even  now  expanding  by  constant  acces- 
sion of  unaided  volunteers,  but  the  natural  inner  development 
is  retarded  by  scantiness  of  means.  In  the  neighborhood  of 


218  MICHAEL   HEILPRItf 

these  colonies  —  and  especially  of  Alliance  and  Carmel  in  New 
Jersey,  whose  proximity  to  Philadelphia  and  "New  York  renders 
them  particularly  important  —  considerable  tracts  of  land  ought 
to  be  acquired  by  the  institution  above  referred  to,  or  by  a  sepa- 
rate kindred  establishment,  in  order  to  secure  land,  at  the  low 
present  price,  to  the  relatives,  friends,  or  other  imitators  of  the 
successful  settler.  Nobody  should  be  encouraged  to  come  and 
settle,  but  those  who  do  come  both  with  means  and  a  fixed  deter- 
mination should  be  helped  along,  without  becoming  recipients 
of  gratuities. 

All  gifts  to  individuals,  because  engaged  in  the  occupation 
which  is  to  be  fostered  and  propagated,  ought  to  be  strictly  ex- 
cluded from  the  programme  of  the  benevolent  institutions  here 
contemplated,  in  order  that  the  Jewish  agriculturist  should  be 
made  to  feel  and  consider  himself  a  self-sustaining  cultivator 
of  the  soil,  and  unsupported  member  of  society.  There  are, 
however,  common  possessions  of  a  settlement  which,  without 
impairing  the  self-respect  of  its  members,  may  be  fostered  and 
enlarged  by  contributions  from  without.  Such  are  the  school, 
a  library,  a  hospital,  or  a  benevolent  institution  in  aid  of  widows 
and  orphans.  The  settlers  ought  to  create  all  these  themselves, 
but  their  creations  will  unavoidably  be  slow  and  insignificant, 
and  the  sooner  they  are  developed  by  donations  of  sympathizers, 
the  more  attractive  will  the  settlements  become  to  their  Jewish 
neighbors  or  occasional  visitors,  who  may  be  inclined  to  ex- 
change the  garret  or  basement  of  the  city  for  the  log-dwelling  of 
an  agricultural  colony.  The  appointment  of  teachers  and  phy- 
sicians, and  the  spreading  through  them  in  the  colonies,  and 
through  pamphlets  and  periodicals  among  the  immigrants  gen- 
erally, of  the  most  useful  knowledge  and  information  (espe- 
cially as  to  agriculture)  would  also  be  an  important  task. 

Experience  has  shown  that  only  such  Jewish  immigrants  can 
subsist  on  farming  alone  who  begin  with  ample  means  and  are 
armed  with  uncommon  energy  and  patience.  Such  are,  how- 
ever, rare  exceptions.  The  others  who  have  succeeded  owe  their 
better  luck  to  assistance  or  industrial  labor  in  the  house.  Suc- 
cess by  assistance,  as  I  have  stated,  can  no  longer  be  our  object 
To  help  the  agriculturist  by  making  it  easy  for  him  to  employ 
profitably  the  days  or  hours  in  the  family  which  are  not  em- 


A  GEEAT  SERVICE  TO  THE  JEWISH  CAUSE    219 

ployed  in  the  field  is,  probably,  the  best  that  can  be  done  for 
him.  Sewing  on  machines  for  factories  or  stores  is  diligently 
practiced  in  Alliance  and  Cannel,  and  the  latter  colony  —  which 
has  grown  up  completely  in  the  shade  —  in  fact  mainly  relies 
on  this  resource.  Let  in  every  settlement  one  or  two  factories 
be  established,  capable  of  employing  one  third  of  the  hands 
available  for  work  —  including  women  and  boys  —  and  almost 
general  prosperity  will  be  insured.  Such  establishments,  how- 
ever, must  exist  and  be  kept  up  completely  on  business  prin- 
ciples, free  from  all  interference  by  the  settlers,  and  bound  to 
them  by  no  kind  of  promises.  Successful  settlers  might,  by 
advances  of  capital,  be  aided  in  creating  minor  establishments 
themselves.  Their  activity  and  enterprise  ought  to  be  spurred 
on  in  various  ways.  The  industries  that  could  be  introduced 
in  colonies  not  remote  from  large,  and  especially  manufacturing, 
cities  are  very  numerous.  It  would,  in  fact,  be  the  greatest 
boon  for  such  centres  of  industry,  harboring  large  numbers  of 
.Tews,  to  have  a  Jewish  agricultural-industrial  settlement  in 
their  neighborhood.  But  these  must  grow  up  by  independent 
effort.  To  develop,  not  to  create  them,  would  be  the  task.  This, 
at  least,  ought  to  be  the  rule.  Experience  might  possibly  sug- 
gest deviations  from  it,  and  teach  different  methods. 

If  we  could  imagine  a  small  homogeneous  committee  of  per- 
fectly responsible,  well-intentioned,  and  energetic  men  to  be 
formed  for  a  lengthy  period  of  time,  and  supplied  with  ample 
means  for  carrying  out,  by  successive  attempts,  the  best  enter- 
prises that  would  suggest  themselves  for  the  lasting  benefit  of 
Jewish  immigrants  in  this  country  —  with  due  regard  to  the 
interest  of  the  country  itself,  and  particularly  also  of  its  general 
Jewish  population  —  the  conclusion  would  be  natural  that  such 
a  body  ought  not  to  be  hampered  by  regulations  and  schemes 
laid  out  in  advance,  and  that  its  own  experience  and  the  wisdom 
it  would  teach  ought  to  be  its  only  guides.  But  is  such  a  creation 
possible  while  the  most  responsible  among  us  have  no  time,  and 
the  best-intentioned  no  experience,  and  energy  in  this  field  is 
without  the  stimulus  of  success  already  achieved  ?  Woe  is  me ! 
The  older  I  grow,  and  the  more  I  see  and  think  and  read,  and 
try  to  act,  the  more  depressing  becomes  my  pessimism  in  Jewish 
matters.  But  the  worse  the  conditions  are  the  more  urgent  is 


220  MICHAEL   HEILPKIN 

the  need  of  effort,  and  the  more  glory  will  redound  to  him  to 
whose  initiative  great  exceptional  good  will  be  due." 

The  establishment  of  the  Baron  de  Hirsch  Fund  in  America, 
with  an  original  endowment  of  two  and  a  half  million  dollars, 
later  on  increased  to  four  millions,  and  its  vast  agencies  for 
benefiting  the  Eussian  Jews  who  have  since  poured  into  this 
country,  was  the  direct  result  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  letter  to  Mr. 
Straus.  Of  the  details  of  this  work,  which  is  being  carried 
on  to  this  day,  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak.  It  is,  however, 
worthy  of  record  that  at  least  one  of  the  colonies  whose  in- 
ception was  due  to  Mr.  Heilprin,  that  of  Carmel,  in  New 
Jersey,  is  still  flourishing.  To  it  may  be  added  the  allied 
three  sister  colonies  in  that  State  —  Woodbine,  Alliance,  and 
Kosenhayn.  And  throughout  the  land  thousands  of  Jewish 
farmers  are  living  proof  that  Mr.  Heilprin's  faith  in  the  ability 
of  Jews  to  become  successful  agriculturists  was  fully  justified. 
The  report  of  the  Jewish  Agricultural  and  Industrial  Aid  So- 
ciety of  New  York  for  1911  shows  that  the  members  of  the  45 
Jewish  Farmers'  Associations  in  the  States  of  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  North  Da- 
kota, and  Washington,  number  2428.  There  exists,  besides,  an 
active  "  Federation  of  Jewish  Farmers  of  America."  The 
Society  referred  to  has  since  its  organization  appropriated  for 
loans  to  farmers  the  sum  of  $1,256,000,  and  these  loans  are  dis- 
tributed over  27  States,  besides  Canada. 


XV 
ILLNESS   AND   DEATH 

In  the  middle  of  April,  1888,  Mr.  Heilprin  fell  ill  with  an 
attack  of  pneumonia,  which  his  weakened  constitution  was  un- 
able to  withstand.  He  realized  that  the  end  was  approaching, 
and  faced  it  with  philosophic  resignation.  On  the  10th  of  May 
he  breathed  his  last.  The  funeral  was  as  simple  as  he  would 
have  wished  it.  There  were  no  religious  exercises,  but  Dr.  Gold- 
man and  Mr.  Garrison  spoke  of  their  friend  in  fitting  words. 

Several  years  later  Mrs.  Manning  gave  the  family  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Garrison  to  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Sarah  Sage,  which  de- 
scribes the  funeral.  It  is  dated  "  The  Park  [Llewellyn  Park, 
Orange],  May  13,  1888." 

"  You  will  have  learned  from  other  sources  of  the  death  of 
our  old  friend  Heilprin  on  Thursday  last  at  his  home  in  Sum- 
mit, N".  J.,  some  ten  miles  from  here.  He  had  been  losing 
ground  visibly  for  a  number  of  years,  ever  since  his  excessive 
exertions  on  behalf  of  the  Russian  Jews,  expelled  by  persecution, 
who  came  to  this  country  with  expectations  of  free  farms  and 
other  milk-and-honey  gifts  from  the  Government.  He  had 
hardly  extricated  himself  from  this  self-imposed  burden  at  the 
time  of  your  father's  death,  and  the  tone  of  his  system  was  so 
much  impaired  that  he  could  not  resist  the  attack  of  pleurisy  to 
which  he  finally  succumbed. 

It  was  very  gratifying  to  me  to  be  asked  by  the  family  to 
come  and  speak  at  his  funeral.  They  were  desirous  to  have 
neither  a  Jewish  nor  an  anti-Jewish  service,  so  did  not  call  in 
cither  Dr.  Adler  or  Mr.  Chadwick.  They  allotted  to  me  some 
remarks  on  Mr.  Heilprin's  learning  and  literary  life ;  to  a  Dr. 
Goldman  (if  I  caught  the  name  right),  a  brother-in-law  of  Dr. 
Adler,  a  general  discourse  on  his  moral  qualities,  and  in  par- 


222  MICHAEL   HEILPEIN 

ticular  some  account  of  his  self-sacrifice  for  the  Russian  Jews. 
This  programme  was  carried  out  yesterday  to  the  letter,  with- 
out the  aid  of  music  or  any  formality  whatever,  but  I  believe  to 
the  general  acceptance. 

The  Heilprins,  including  the  married  daughter  Mrs.  Pollak 
and  her  family,  live  comfortably  but  plainly  in  a  house  sur- 
rounded by  grounds  in  the  heart  of  the  village,  which,  though 
on  high  ground,  as  its  name  implies,  is  here  a  plain.  There  was 
a  large  concourse  of  friends  and  relatives.  Mrs.  Heilprin  was 
greatly  overcome,  .  .  .  indeed  the  intellectual  partnership  be- 
tween herself  and  her  husband  —  she  reading  aloud  to  him 
through  all  the  years  when  he  was  forbidden  to  use  his  eyes  — 
was  as  close  ...  as  can  very  rarely  subsist  between  man  and 
wife.  Professor  Angelo  Heilprin  was  there  from  Philadelphia. 
The  Franklins  from  Baltimore  were  unable  to  attend. 

It  was  wisely  decided  to  bury  Mr.  Heilprin  where  he  fell, 
and  the  body  was  taken  to  a  country  cemetery  near  by,  on  the 
side  of  a  hill  commanding  a  lovely  prospect  over  the  valley  of 
the  Passaic.  The  air  was  full  of  moisture,  and  a  haze  hung 
over  everything,  partly  heightening  the  charm,  but  rather,  I 
fancy,  concealing  the  best  features  of  the  landscape,  which  was 
quite  new  to  me.  No  words  were  spoken  at  the  grave,  but  a  Jew- 
ish (and  German)  custom  was  observed  of  the  relatives  them- 
selves throwing  each  a  spadeful  of  earth  upon  the  coffin. 

Though  every  acquaintance  of  mine  not  formed  before  I  left 
Boston  seems  new  to  me,  Mr.  Heilprin  and  I  have  been  friends 
for  nearly  half  my  life;  and  if  I  feel  bereft  on  the  spiritual 
side,  I  also  deeply  feel  the  loss  of  one  on  whose  scholarship  I  so 
much  depended  when  out  of  my  depth,  and  whose  devotion  to 
the  Nation  was  the  warmest  I  have  ever  known.  We  shall  at- 
tempt to  pay  a  just  tribute  to  him  in  the  Nation  of  next  week." 


XVI 
HOME  LIFE  AND  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

It  has  not  been  possible,  in  the  narrative  so  far  given,  to 
enumerate  the  intimate  traits  which  alone  reveal  the  inner  man 
and  endear  him  to  those  with  whom  he  passes  his  days.  Rare 
it  is,  indeed,  to  think  of  one  who  has  left  us,  without  having 
the  cherished  presence  momentarily  clouded  by  the  recollection 
of  something  in  his  life  we  would  have  wished  undone  or 
unsaid.  No  such  shadow  rests  upon  Mr.  Heilprin's  life.  It 
was,  to  those  around  him,  always  serene  and  reposeful.  An 
atmosphere  of  stimulating  cheerfulness  went  with  him  wherever 
he  was.  Few  men  enjoyed  the  simple  pleasures  of  life  more 
than  he  did.  The  beauties  of  Nature  lay  ever  outspread  before 
him.  A  fine  sunset,  a  pleasing  landscape,  thrilled  his  heart  in 
his  old  age,  as  they  had  done  in  his  youth,  and  they  were  his 
solace  in  the  hours  of  trial  and  sorrow.  And  were  there  not, 
daily,  the  pleasures  of  home  life?  Was  there  not  the  cheery- 
talk  with  wife  and  children,  the  community  of  interests  with 
them  all  in  the  great  and  little  concerns  of  the  world?  Were 
there  not,  after  the  day's  work  was  over,  the  favorite  novelists  — 
Cooper,  Scott,  Dickens,  and  others,  read  aloud  by  one  of  the 
children,  while  all  the  others  of  the  family  listened  and  shared 
his  enjoyment  ?  And,  lastly,  were  there  not  the  unfailing  feasts 
of  the  table,  which  he  enjoyed  with  such  keen  relish  and  such 
appreciative  laudation,  though  others  might  have  looked  askance 
at  the  uniformly  recurring  eggs  at  the  noon  and  evening  meal  ? 
He  was  no  Puritan,  and  though  there  was  rarely  wine  at  hia 
own  board,  he  could,  on  occasion,  grow  enthusiastic  over  a 
glass  of  good  wine,  especially  Hungarian  wine,  at  a  friend's 
house.  Tobacco  he  never  used,  and  cards,  in  the  years  I  knew 
him,  he  never  touched,  but  he  enjoyed  sometimes  a  game  of 
chess,  which  he  played  more  than  fairly  well.  He  loved  to  see 


224:  MICHAEL   HEILPKIST 

visitors  at  his  house  and  was  merry  with  the  young.  In  talking 
with  little  children  —  not  only  his  children's  children,  to  whom 
he  was  the  most  devoted  of  grandfathers  —  a  quivering  of  the 
lower  lip  betrayed  his  deep  affection.  On  Sundays,  as  long  as 
he  lived  in  the  city,  there  were  often  many  visitors  at  the  house, 
and  any  friend,  young  or  old,  was  made  welcome  at  the  simple 
supper,  without  preparation  or  notice. 

Such  a  home  life  would  not  have  been  possible  without  a  wife 
who  met  all  his  requirements.  Henrietta  Heilprin,  though  not  a 
strictly  learned  woman,  had  something  of  her  husband's  aptitude 
for  languages  and  was  keenly  interested  in  all  his  literary  pur- 
suits. She  spoke  four  languages  —  English,  German,  Hun- 
garian, and  Polish  —  fluently,  though  not  absolutely  faultlessly, 
and  read  also  French.  She  was  a  woman  of  native  grace  and 
dignity,  and  in  her  youth  very  beautiful.  Her  management 
in  matters  of  domestic  economy  was  wonderful.  There  was 
never  any  appearance  of  straitened  means  in  any  department, 
and  there  were  always  flowers  and  bright  bits  of  ornament  in 
the  home.  Mrs.  Heilprin  retained  her  serenity  and  her  in- 
terest in  the  world's  doings  until  old  age.  She  died  July  1, 
1899,  in  her  seventy-ninth  year. 

Mr.  Heilprin's  educational  methods  partook  of  the  sim- 
plicity of  all  the  ways  of  the  household.  Gently  led,  the  chil- 
dren responded  to  the  suggestions  of  their  parents  with  cheerful 
alacrity.  There  was  practically  no  direct  teaching.  The  near- 
est approach  to  systematic  instruction  given  them  was,  for  a 
brief  time,  a  little  Hebrew,  imparted  by  means  of  a  blank  book, 
in  which  the  father  wrote  simple  words  and  phrases  in  Hebrew, 
German,  French,  and  Hungarian.  Girls  and  boys  alike  picked 
up  languages  very  much  as  their  father  had  done  in  his  youth 
(though  they  never  began,  as  he  generally  did  throughout  his 
life,  the  study  of  a  new  tongue  by  reading  the  Bible  in  it),  but 
they  had  the  advantage  of  frequent  practice,  in  reading  to  him 
—  who  rarely  used  his  own  eyes  —  now  a  French  book,  now  a 
German,  now  a  Spanish  or  Italian  one.  One  bit  of  informa- 
tion led  to  another,  and  the  gaps  were  filled  without  visible  effort. 
When  his  sons  had  reached  the  age  of  sixteen  and  fourteen  re- 
spectively, he  found,  on  a  certain  occasion,  their  knowledge  of 
some  parts  of  European  geography  rather  defective.  A  Jiint 


HENRIETTA  HEILPRIN 


HOME  LIFE,  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS    225 

was  sufficient  From  that  day  on  geography  became  that  seri- 
ous study  to  them  which  bore  fruit,  in  the  case  of  both,  in  an 
encyclopaedic  knowledge  of  the  earth's  surface.  There  were  no 
rewards,  as  there  were  no  punishments,  in  this  plan  of  education, 
but  there  were  often  great  treats  for  the  children.  Besides 
little  excursions  into  the  country  with  them,  there  were  a  few 
trips,  on  a  larger  scale,  carefully  planned  weeks  beforehand  and 
enjoyed  in  recollection  years  afterwards  —  such  as  a  journey 
with  the  boys,  largely  on  foot,  through  New  England.  There 
was,  often  and  often,  barely  money  enough  for  the  necessities, 
but  for  the  luxuries  —  books,  excursions,  lectures  of  unusual 
attractiveness  —  and,  above  all,  for  charity,  funds  were  always 
forthcoming. 

Mr.  Chadwick  has  spoken  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  phenomenal 
powers  of  conversation.  But  nothing  was  further  from  his 
mind  than  an  ostentatious  display  of  knowledge.  He  simply; 
could  not  help  being  eloquent,  and  he  was  naturally  communi- 
cative; but  the  social  or  intellectual  standing  of  those  with 
whom  he  conversed  made  not  a  particle  of  difference  in  his 
attitude.  He  was  as  amiable  to  a  needy  stranger  (and  there 
were  many  who  found  their  way  to  his  home,  both  in  New  York 
and  in  Summit)  as  he  was  to  a  learned  professor.  More  than 
once  he  left  an  unfinished  article,  to  hurry  away  with  some 
Polish  or  Hungarian  laborer,  unable  to  speak  a  word  of  English, 
who  was  in  some  trouble,  and  had  appealed  to  him  to  straighten 
out  matters  with  his  employer. 

The  life  in  Summit  he  grew  to  be  very  fond  of.  He  was  a 
good  neighbor,  as  he  had  always  been  everywhere,  and  he  con- 
sidered it  his  duty  to  identify  himself  with  the  place  in  which 
he  lived.  He  attended  public  meetings  and  took  an  interest  in 
all  the  concerns  of  village  life.  The  good  name  of  Summit  as 
an  orderly  and  cleanly  place  was  a  matter  of  importance  to 
him,  and  he  warmly  seconded  all  the  efforts  of  the  Village  Im- 
provement Society.  I  remember  seeing  him  on  one  occasion, 
when  one  of  the  paths  was  littered  with  stray  paper,  pick  up 
each  bit  and  deposit  the  lot  in  the  proper  receptacle.  All  this 
was  done  without  ostentation.  Respect  for  authority  and  strict 
obedience  to  law  were  part  of  his  nature,  but  he  could  make 
every  allowance  for  thr,  weaknesses  of  others,  and  never  im- 


226  MICHAEL   HEILPRIN 

posed  upon  them  his  own  stricter  notions  of  propriety.  He  had 
a  good  deal  of  worldly  shrewdness  in  dealing  with  men  of  all 
sorts  and  conditions,  and  his  advice  in  practical  matters  some- 
times proved  very  sound. 

Though  he  spent  a  portion  of  every  day  at  the  writing  table, 
he  rarely  overworked,  and  he  never  worked  feverishly.  He  had 
an  unfailing  resource  against  mental  fatigue  in  his  ability  to 
command,  almost  at  will,  brief  naps.  He  would  lean  back  in 
his  chair,  just  after  writing  an  article,  and  doze  off  in  an  in- 
stant. When  meditating  he  would  walk  up  and  down  in  his 
room,  humming  his  favorite  lines,  from  Childe  Harold: 

Yon  sun  that  sets  upon  the  sea 
We  follow  in  his  flight: 
Farewell  awhile  to  him  and  thee, 
My  native  land  —  good-night ! 

Perhaps  the  verse  recalled  distant  scenes  in  his  own  life,  pos- 
sibly the  lines  expressed  an  occasional  longing  for  Poland  and 
Hungary,  which  he  was  destined  never  to  see  again.  Though 
not  musical,  he  was  very  responsive  to  simple  melodies,  and 
Hungarian  music  fired  his  heart  even  in  old  age. 

It  is  not  strange  that  his  closest  friends  should  have  been 
those  with  whom  he  had  in  common  the  love  for  Hungary,  but 
he  endeared  himself  to  a  wide  circle  of  friends  in  his  adopted 
country.  Mr.  Chadwick  he  met  first  at  Mr.  Manning's  house, 
where  there  was  an  occasional  gathering  of  choice  spirits. 
Through  the  Mannings  Mr.  Heilprin  became  also  acquainted 
with  Professor  E.  L.  Youmans,  and  with  Samuel  Longfellow 
—  brother  of  the  poet  —  Mr.  Chadwick's  predecessor  in  the 
Unitarian  pulpit  in  Brooklyn.  He  knew  Horace  Greeley,  as  he 
did  Goldwin  Smith,  Professor  William  C.  Russel,  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  Cornell,  and  Professor  Child,  of  Harvard,  with  whom 
he  once  spent  a  day  at  Cambridge,  in  order  to  give  him  the  ben- 
efit of  his  information  in  matters  connected  with  Slavic  folk- 
lore. 

Among  the  prominent  Germans  who,  after  1848,  found  a 
refuge  in  this  country,  Mr.  Heilprin  knew  well  Carl  Schurz  and 
Hugo  Wesendonck.  He  came  into  pleasant  contact  with  a  num- 
ber of  these  through  his  connection  with  the  "  Namenloser 


HOME  LIFE,  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS    227 

Verein,"  an  informal  club  of  chosen  men  which  met,  in  the 
sixties,  in  New  York.  Carl  Schurz  occasionally  attended  the 
meetings  of  thfe  club ;  other  members  were  Friedrich  Kapp  and 
Dr.  Lowe-Kalbe,  both  of  whom  later  achieved  distinction  in 
the  parliamentary  life  of  united  Germany. 

Though  not  a  willing  letter-writer,  Mr.  Heilprin  kept  up  an 
occasional  correspondence  with  a  few  old  friends  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean,  among  them  Fabius  Mieses  of  Leipzig  —  a 
name  of  considerable  repute  in  Jewish  literature.  Throughout 
his  life  he  retained  his  interest  in  the  doings  of  such  notable  rep- 
resentatives of  Jewish  learning  as  Graetz,  Geiger  (whom  he  had 
known  personally),  and  especially  Zunz,  the  Nestor  of  Jewish 
scholars,  whose  attainments  and  methods  he  greatly  admired. 

Of  the  learned  Hebraists  of  this  city  Mr.  Heilprin  knew 
longest  and  best  Dr.  Samuel  Adler.  Another  warm  friend  was 
Dr.  B.  Szold  of  Baltimore.  He  undertook,  after  Mr.  Heilprin's 
death,  to  edit  the  Biblical  Notes,  dating  from  his  earliest  youth, 
which  were  found  among  his  papers.  They  were  privately 
printed,  in  Hebrew  throughout,  as  Bibelkritische  Notizen,  with  a 
preface  in  German  by  Dr.  Szold,  in  which,  addressing  himself 
to  Biblical  scholars,  he  expressed  his  hope  that,  "  in  a  skilful 
hand,  what  is  offered  here  may  develop  into  a  complete  and  im- 
portant work,  and  that  even  in  their  present  shape  these  notes 
would  prove  most  stimulating  to  scholars  in  this  field." 

With  all  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  fondness  for  congenial  compan- 
ionship his  most  constant  friends  were  his  books.  In  reading 
for  pure  pleasure  he  often  turned  to  some  favorite  of  his  youth 
end  early  manhood.  "  Anastasius  Griin  "  (Count  Anton  Auers- 
perg),  the  liberal  singer  of  Austrian  Germany,  was  one  of 
these.  In  prose  and  poetry  alike  he  looked  for  simplicity  and 
clearness.  The  mocking  spirit  in  literature,  however  allied  to 
genius,  he  disliked,  and  he  abhorred,  like  Goethe,  caricature  in 
any  form.  His  reverence  for  the  Humanists,  in  the  broadest 
sense,  remained  undimmed.  Among  German  classics,  he  was 
most  familiar  with  Lessing,  Mendelssohn,  and  Herder.  Men- 
delssohn's Phddon  (On  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul)  he  placed 
more  than  once  in  the  hands  of  friends  called  upon  to  confront 
a  sudden  bereavement.  But  he  did  not  mean  to  convey  thereby 
his  own  faith.  What  that  was  he  never  made  the  subject  of 


228  MICHAEL   HEILPKIST 

conversation,  but  all  who  knew  him  knew  also  that  creed  meant 
as  little  to  him  as  race  or  nationality  when  the  claims  of  a  com- 
mon brotherhood  in  suffering  asserted  themselves.  Though 
most  tolerant,  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  word,  his  mild  blue 
eyes  could  flash  indignation  against  flagrant  public  or  private 
wrongdoing.  He  would  never  forgive  the  offences  of  Grant 
the  President,  however  much  he  admired  the  deeds  of  the  Gen- 
eral. Of  all  men  in  our  recent  public  life,  Cleveland  most 
fully  won  his  heart.  The  memory  of  Lincoln  he  worshipped. 
Of  his  standards  in  matters  of  belief  we  sometimes  catch 
glimpses  in  his  writings,  as  in  the  following  passage  from  a  re- 
view of  "  Contemporary  Portraits  "  by  E.  de  Pressense,  the 
eminent  representative  of  conservative  French  Protestantism. 

"  Like  Vinet,  M.  de  Pressense  is  '  as  impatient  of  the  yoke 
of  intolerant  orthodoxy  as  of  that  of  the  hierarchy/  and  does 
'  not  find  the  truth  embodied  in  the  form  of  a  systematic  creed 
even  in  the  Bible  itself,  which  speaks  with  supreme  authority  on 
matters  of  faith/  It  is  perhaps  needless  to  add  that  he  con- 
demns Bismarck's  Culturkampf  almost  as  much  as  the  dog- 
matic enunciations  of  Pius  IX.  M.  de  Pressense  is  thus  a 
zealous  champion  both  of  faith  and  freedom ;  and  his  champion- 
ship is  marked  by  the  best  moral  qualities  of  a  leader:  ardor 
tempered  by  toleration,  partisanship  restrained  by  charitable- 
ness. The  last-named  virtue,  however,  is  perhaps  too  far 
stretched  in  some  of  his  biographical  sketches.  His  '  Thiers ' 
is  all  but  a  panegyric,  although  the  founder  of  the  French  re- 
public was  never  a  model  of  a  Christian,  and  only  in  his  last 
years  an  advocate  of  republican  liberty;  and  Voltaire  and  Du- 
panloup  —  men  of  the  most  antagonistic  tendencies,  though  of 
tendencies  equally  repugnant  to  the  author  —  are  judged  with 
a  mildness  which  the  mere  admiration  of  genius  and  esprit  does 
not  sufficiently  justify.  Strauss  alone,  the  assailant  both  of 
Christianity  and  France  —  of  the  latter  in  1870  —  may  be  said 
to  be  treated  without  favor,  though  also  sine  ira.  The  spirit 
that  pervades  the  whole  book  is  noble,  the  style  is  beautiful 
throughout,  and  the  light  thrown  upon  the  evangelical  move- 
ments of  our  age  —  especially  in  France,  Switzerland,  and  Eng- 
land—  must  be  welcome  to  thoughtful  readers  of  every  shade 


THE   LESSON"   OF   ME.   HEILPKIIST'S   LIFE    229 

of  religious  opinion.  The  philosophy,  however,  which  under- 
lies the  Christian  speculations  of  the  author  must  be  said  to  be 
merely  a  philosophy  of  sentiment.  His  dogmas  are  based 
neither  on  logical  nor  on  historical  deductions ;  they  grow  sub- 
jectively out  of  his  conscience  and  pious  reverence." 

We  have  in  this  extract  the  reflection  of  Michael  Heilprin's 
own  character  —  with  his  tolerant  liberalism  and  his  insistence 
on  truth,  logic,  and  accuracy.  His  entire  life  was  the  best  expo- 
sition of  his  religion  and  philosophy.  He  lives  in  the  fond 
recollection  of  those  who  knew  and  loved  him,  who  daily  admired 
the  loftiness  of  his  motives  and  the  unvarying  sweetness  of  his 
disposition,  who  were  under  the  spell  of  his  fiery  eloquence,  who 
beheld  in  him  the  pure  patriot  of  two  continents,  the  scholar  of 
unrivaled  attainments,  with  a  heart  for  the  humblest  fellow- 
man,  whatever  his  race  or  faith. 


PAET  II 
ANGELO   HEILPEIN 


ANGELO  HEILPRIN 


ANGELO  HEILPRIN 


HIS   EAKLY  LIFE 

Angelo  Heilprin  was  bom  at  SatoraljVCTjhely,  Hungary, 
March  31,  1853,  and  came  to  this  country  with  his  parents  in 
1856.  He  received  his  first  schooling  in  Philadelphia  and 
•Brooklyn,  and  attended  for  a  year  a  grammar  school  in 
Yonkers.  His  early  interest  in  nature  was  stimulated  by  a 
Hungarian  book  on  animals,  Kaff's  Termeszet-Historidja,  a 
gift  of  the  Kossuth  family,  which  his  parents  had  brought  with 
them  to  this  country.  From  their  earliest  years  Angelo  and  his 
brother  Louis  were  inseparable,  and  they  shared  alike  their 
Studies  and  their  pleasures.  Drawing  and  painting  with  simple 
water  colors  was  one  of  their  favorite  pastimes.  Angelo  turned 
to  a  much  more  ambitious  artistic  task  when  the  family  moved 
to  Washington.  It  was  nothing  less  than  the  copying  of  some 
of  the  paintings  in  the  Capitol,  among  others  the  "  Marriage  of 
Pocahontas."  The  boy  of  ten  sought  and  obtained  permission 
to  sit  in  the  rotunda  for  this  purpose,  and  often  attracted 
attention  by  his  patient  work  amid  such  surroundings.  In  his 
own  room  at  home  he  adorned  the  walls  with  frescoes  from 
his  sketches.  Nothing,  of  course,  is  left  of  these  youthful 
efforts,  but  they  linger  in  the  memory  of  those  who  saw  them 
as  quite  remarkable. 

In  Yonkers,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  and  during  the  following 
year,  Angelo  received  some  instruction  in  piano  playing,  for 
which  he  developed  a  great  liking.  Though  a  most  obedient 
child,  he  early  showed  that  spirit  of  independence  of  which 
he  was  later  to  give  so  many  striking  proofs.  When,  at  the 
age  of  thirteen,  he  was  told  by  the  family  physician  that,  on 
account  of  a  temporary  weakness,  he  ought  to  desist  from 


234  ANGELO   HEILPBIX 

skating,  he  wrote,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  parents,  to 
the  doctor,  pleading  earnestly  for  a  little  freedom  in  the 
matter,  and  gained  his  point.  At  the  age  of  fourteen,  when 
the  family  moved  to  !New  York,  he,  together  with  his  brother, 
entered  a  hardware  concern,  where  they  used  every  leisure 
hour,  with  the  consent  of  their  amiable  employer,  in  studying 
geography.  The  early  mornings  and  the  evening  hours  at  home 
were  given  to  books  on  various  subjects,  —  history,  travels, 
botany,  physics,  etc.  Nor  was  the  study  of  foreign  languages 
neglected.  In  spite  of  his  pronounced  bent  toward  the  acquisi- 
tion of  knowledge,  Angelo  attended  faithfully  to  his  office 
duties,  and  he  rose  to  an  important  position  in  a  larger  mer- 
cantile house,  which  he  had  entered  in  1871.  He  was  offered 
an  interest  in  the  firm  in  the  following  year,  but  he  had  long 
decided  to  follow  the  life  of  a  naturalist.  The  evening  hours 
were  still  spent  in  the  study  of  serious  works  on  scientific 
subjects,  including  chemistry,  geology,  and  biology.  Some  of 
these  books  his  mother  read  to  him,  while  he  was  suffering 
from  a  slight  affection  of  the  eyes.  The  revision  of  the  Ameri- 
can Cyclopaedia,  begun  by  his  father  in  1873,  gave  him  the 
longed-for  opportunity  of  abandoning  mercantile  pursuits,  and 
from  that  time  until  the  autumn  of  1876  he  assisted  his  father 
in  this  work,  together  with  his  brother  and  sisters.  During 
these  years  he  pursued  his  study  of  the  natural  sciences  with 
even  greater  ardor,  occasionally  dissected  a  fowl,  collected 
mineralogical  specimens,  and  in  his  excursions  had  an  eye 
on  plants,  trees,  and  other  natural  objects.  Nor  was  his  in- 
terest in  art  allowed  to  slumber.  One  day  a  block  of  marble 
was  brought  to  the  house,  out  of  which  he  proceeded,  with 
partly  self-made  tools,  to  fashion  a  lion,  for  which  he  had 
made  sketches  from  a  living  model  in  Central  Park.  If  not 
a  finished  work  of  art,  this  first  and  only  attempt  at  sculpture 
gave  another  proof  of  the  young  man's  versatility  and  his  skill 
in  accomplishing  whatever  he  set  out  to  do. 

ARTICLE  ON  TYNDALI,  FOR  THE  AMERICAN  CYCLOPEDIA 

While  assisting  his  father  he  modestly  asked  to  be  allowed 
to  try  his  hand  at  writing  a  few  articles  on  scientific  subjects. 


AN   ARTICLE    ON    TYNDALL  235 

Being  given  permission  by  the  editors-in-chief,  he  produced 
several  striking  biographies,  of  which  the  one  on  Tyndall  is  the 
most  important.  It  was  a  summing  up,  from  a  careful  read- 
ing of  Tyndall's  works,  of  his  achievements  in  physics.  The 
article  was  submitted,  in  proof,  to  Professor  Tyndall  himself, 
who  expressed  to  the  editors  his  great  satisfaction  with  it.  In 
this  biography,  the  young  writer  said: 

"  The  labors  of  Professor  Tyndall,  though  more  particularly 
directed  toward  the  examination  of  the  molecular  constitution 
of  matter,  have  not  been  confined  to  any  special  branch  of 
physics.  Between  1849  and  1856  he  was  mainly  occupied  with 
the  prosecution  of  his  experiments  in  magnetism  and  electricity, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  conclusively  settled  the  question  of 
diamagnetic  or  reversed  polarity,  the  existence  of  which,  origi- 
nally asserted  by  Faraday,  and  reaffirmed  by  Weber  in  1848, 
had  been  subsequently  denied  by  the  former.  In  1859  he 
initiated  a  remarkable  series  of  researches  in  radiant  heat, 
which  were  extended  over  a  period  of  more  than  ten  years. 
The  diathermancy  of  simple  and  compound  gases,  as  well  as 
of  various  vapors  and  liquids,  was  experimentally  tested,  and 
the  degrees  of  their  opacity  to  radiant  heat  determined  with 
great  precision.  Dry  atmospheric  air,  which  had  hitherto  af- 
forded but  negative  results  to  Melloni,  was  ascertained  to  have 
an  absorptive  power  about  equal  to  that  of  its  main  elementary 
components,  and  but  a  mere  fraction  of  that  of  aqueous  vapor ; 
a  discovery  which,  in  its  bearings  on  terrestrial  and  solar  radi- 
ation, has  exerted  a  marked  influence  on  the  progress  of  meteor- 
ology. The  principle  of  the  physical  connection  of  the  emis- 
sion and  absorption  of  undulations  (first  enunciated  by  Euler), 
which  formed  the  basis  of  Angstrom's  experiments  on  the 
radiation  and  absorption  of  incandescent  solids,  and  which 
laid  the  foundation  for  the  science  of  spectrum  analysis,  was 
applied  by  Tyndall  to  gases  and  vapors  some  time  previous  to 
the  publication  of  Kirchhoff's  more  specialized  generalizations 
respecting  refrangibility.  Tyndall's  investigations  on  obscure 
and  luminous  radiations,  and  on  the  nature  of  calorescence,  on 
the  transmutation  of  heat  rays,  form  some  of  the  most  note- 
worthy of  his  contributions  to  molecular  physics.  By  means 


236  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

of  a  filter  composed  of  a  solution  of  iodine  and  the  bisulphide 
of  carbon,  so  constituted  as  to  intercept  all  but  the  ultra-red 
rays  of  any  luminous  source  of  heat,  he  has  ascertained  that 
the  visible  thermal  rays  emanating  from  any  particular  body 
bear  but  a  small  ratio  to  the  total  number  of  thermal  rays  emitted 
by  that  body.  He  has  also  shown,  by  experiments  on  his  own 
eyes,  that  the  calorific  energy  of  a  concentrated  electric  beam, 
capable  of  raising  platinized  platinum  foil  to  vivid  redness, 
and  of  instantaneously  exploding  gunpowder  at  an  absolute 
dark  focus,  is  incompetent  to  excite  the  sense  of  vision  in  the 
human  retina.  The  subject  of  gaseous  conductivity  (which  led 
to  views  antagonistic  to  those  entertained  by  Magnus),  the  action 
of  odors  and  colors  on  radiant  heat,  and  the  various  laws  gov- 
erning acoustic  and  optical  phenomena,  have  also  engaged  his 
attention.  To  him  is  due  the  beautiful  interpretation  of  the 
azure  color  of  the  firmament,  as  well  as  of  the  changing  tints 
accompanying  the  morning  and  evening  twilight.  (See  Light.) 
Since  1873  his  labors  have  been  more  generally  related  to  those 
of  the  Trinity  house,  in  connection  with  inquiries  made  into  the 
causes  which  affect  the  acoustic  transparency  of  the  atmosphere." 

A  REVIEW  OF  HUXLEY'S  "  ELEMENTABY  BIOLOGY  " 

In  addition  to  his  work  on  the  Cyclopaedia,  the  young  student 
found  time  for  contributions  to  the  Nation,  among  which  were 
a  notice  of  a  new  volume  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  and 
the  following  review  of  Huxley's  Course  of  Practical  Instruction 
in  Elementary  Biology: 

"The  lack  of  a  suitable  series  of  elementary  text-books  on 
zoology,  designed  to  lead  the  student  step  by  step  from  the 
study  of  the  simpler  forms  of  animal  life  to  the  more  complex, 
and  calculated  at  the  same  time  not  merely  to  furnish  what 
may  be  vaguely  termed  a  descriptive  survey  of  the  animal  king- 
dom, but  to  impart  a  clear  and  specific  knowledge  of  the  struc- 
ture, physiology,  and  affinities  of  the  various  objects  brought 
under  observation,  has  been  long  felt  by  the  scientific  public. 
Professor  Huxley's  treatise  is  of  an  essentially  practical  but  at 
the  same  time  decidedly  popular  nature.  Written  in  that  f  amil- 


A   EEVIEW   OF   HUXLEY'S    "BIOLOGY"    23Y 

iar  and  vigorous  style  so  characteristic  of  most  of  the  author's 
writings,  concise  in  statement  and  accurate  in  definition,  it 
leaves  little  in  the  scope  of  the  work  to  be  desired.  Though 
not  sufficiently  elementary  in  certain  portions,  and  perhaps 
a  little  too  abstruse  in  others,  it  is,  on  the  whole,  clear  enough 
to  be  handled  by  anyone  pretending  to  but  a  slight  knowledge 
of  the  first  principles  of  the  science.  Taking  the  common  yeast- 
plant  (torula)  and  proiococcus,  as  forms  exemplifying  the  sim- 
plest stage  of  vegetable  existence,  and  amoeba  as  equally  illus- 
trative of  the  lowest  type  of  animal  organism,  we  follow  the 
professor  in  a  minute  examination  of  the  microscopic  cell  and 
cell-contents,  observe  their  mode  of  growth,  reproduction,  and 
decay,  and  note  the  interesting  changes  which  they  undergo 
under  the  direct  influence  of  heat  and  light,  or  through  the  action 
of  chemical  agents.  From  the  investigation  of  these  primitive 
particles  of  organized  matter  —  matter  which  may  be  almost 
said  to  be  leading  a  passive  or  rather  mechanical  existence  — 
we  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the  more  highly  constituted 
moulds  (penicillium  and  mucor),  plants  consisting  of  an  aggre- 
gation of  homogeneous  cells,  and  which,  though  showing  a  true 
differentiation  into  organs,  still  bear  a  strong  affinity  to 
iorula.  CTiara  and  the  bracken  fern  (pteris  aquilina)  illustrate 
a  bi-sexual  mode  of  reproduction  among  the  thallogens  and 
acrogens  respectively,  while  the  bean  affords  a  familiar  ex- 
ample of  an  exogenous  phsenogam.  Appended  to  the  brief  but 
well-sifted  descriptive  text  which  forms  the  reading  matter 
of  the  work  is  a  course  of  instructions  intended  to  carry  the 
student  through  a  series  of  microscopical  researches  into  the 
anatomy  and  physiology  of  each  subject,  and  which  will,  in  the 
words  of  Professor  Huxley,  enable  him  'to  know  of  his  own 
knowledge  the  chief  facts  mentioned  in  the  account  of  the 
animal  or  plant.'  The  section  devoted  to  zoology  is  treated  in 
pretty  much  the  same  manner  as  that  on  botany.  A  number 
of  well-known  objects,  easily  obtainable  in  most  localities  (such 
as  the  fresh-water  polyp,  mussel,  and  frog),  serve  to  typify 
some  of  the  leading  modifications  of  animal  structure,  and  to 
represent  at  the  same  time  the  several  principal  classes  into 
which  the  animal  kingdom  has  been  divided.  Great  space  is 
allotted  to  the  description  of  the  frog,  the  details  about  that 


238  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

worthy  subject  occupying  no  less  than  one-third  of  the  entire 
volume,  or  more  than  100  pages. 

What  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  character  of  the  present 
work  is  the  complete  absence  of  anything  approaching  a  ten- 
dency to  speculative  theorizing,  a  remarkable  circumstance  in 
view  of  the  number  of  important  questions  with  which  the 
author's  name  has  been  prominently  connected.  In  one  in- 
stance only  do  we  find  an  allusion  that  may  be  regarded  as 
having  any  bearing  on  one  or  other  of  the  great  biological  prob- 
lems of  the  day  —  namely,  under  bacteria,  where  a  direct  refu- 
tation is  given  to  the  experiments  frequently  brought  forward 
in  support  of  the  theory  of  spontaneous  generation.  Objection 
might  be  made  to  the  summary  and  positive  manner  in  which 
this  interesting  question  is  disposed  of,  but  the  author  had 
already  fully  stated  his  views  on  that  point  in  his  presidential 
address  before  the  British  Association  in  1870.  In  the  chapter 
on  the  bean,  we  are  surprised  to  find  no  mention  of  that  fact 
of  primary  signification  in  vegetable  morphology,  the  correla- 
tion of  the  different  organs  of  the  plant  —  in  other  words,  the 
intimate  relation  which  the  various  parts  constituting  the  flower 
and  fruit  bear  to  the  leaf." 


STUDIES  IN  EUROPE 

After  the  completion  of  the  American  Cyclopaedia,  in  1876, 
Angelo  Heilprin,  then  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  was  able  to 
carry  out  a  long-cherished  plan.  He  went  to  Europe  to  study 
the  natural  sciences  under  eminent  teachers.  Entering  what 
was  then  known  as  the  Royal  School  of  Mines  (now  the  Normal 
School  of  Science)  he  studied  biology  under  Huxley,  geology 
under  Judd,  and  palaeontology  under  Etheridge.  His  con- 
spicuous ability  won  for  him,  after  a  year,  the  Forbes  medal 
for  proficiency  in  biology  and  palaeontology.  He  then  went 
to  Paris  and  Switzerland,  journeying  through  the  Alps  and 
studying  glaciers,  and,  in  the  fall  of  1877,  settled  for  the  winter 
in  Geneva,  where  he  attended  the  lectures  of  Carl  Vogt.  A 
journey  to  Italy  followed,  where  he  found  varied  inspiration. 
In  Florence  he  attended,  for  a  few  weeks,  a  course  in  painting 
—  the  only  instruction  in  the  technique  of  art  he  ever  received. 


HIS   WORK   IN   PHILADELPHIA  239 

He  then  crossed  the  Alps  on  his  way  to  Austria  and  studied  for 
a  short  time  at  the  Imperial  Geological  Institute  of  Vienna. 
Going  thence  to  Hungary,  he  ascended  some  of  the  Carpathian 
peaks,  and  finally  went  to  Russian  Poland,  where  he  spent  six 
months  with  relatives.  Even  before  his  return  to  America,  in 
June,  1879,  Professor  Huxley  had  written  to  both  President 
Gilman  and  Professor  Martin,  of  Johns  Hopkins,  recommend- 
ing his  young  pupil  in  the  warmest  terms  for  a  fellowship  in 
the  University.  To  Professor  Martin  Huxley  wrote :  "  He  was 
longo  intervallo  the  best  man  in  my  class." 

A  letter  from  a  friend  in  the  University  urging  young  Heil- 
prin  to  apply  for  a  fellowship  failed  to  reach  him,  and  he  missed 
the  opportunity. 

WORK  IN  PHILADELPHIA 

On  his  return  to  America  he  decided  to  settle  in  Philadelphia, 
and  there  began  his  fruitful  connection  with  the  Academy  of 
Natural  Sciences.  Of  his  work  in  that  institution,  its  secre- 
tary, Dr.  Edward  J.  Nolan,  said: 

"Without  loss  of  time  he  took  up  the  study  of  his  chosen 
branch,  Invertebrate  Palaeontology.  His  bearing  was  that  of  a 
modest,  retiring  and  industrious  student.  He  presented  his 
first  paper  for  publication  in  the  Proceedings,  October  21,  1879, 
under  the  title,  '  On  Some  New  Eocene  Fossils  from  the  Glair- 
borne  Marine  Formation  of  Alabama.'  He  offered  two  others 
the  same  year,  and  the  papers  and  reports  of  verbal  communi- 
cations published  by  him  during  his  active  connection  with  the 
Academy,  from  then  until  1891,  when  his  work  began  to  take 
another  shape,  number  forty-six  in  all,  in  addition  to  annual 
reports. 

"  He  was  elected  a  Correspondent  of  the  Academy  January 
27,  1880,  he  then  being  regarded  as  a  resident  of  New  York, 
but  deciding  to  remove  permanently  to  Philadelphia,  he  was 
transferred  to  the  membership  list.  He  served  as  a  Jessup  Fund 
student  during  the  latter  third  of  the  year,  resigning  that  posi- 
tion on  his  appointment  by  the  Council,  December  27th,  to  the 
Professorship  of  Invertebrate  Palaeontology.  He  occupied  this 


240  ANGELO   HEILPRIIT     t 

position  until  1895,  when  he  was  transferred  to  the  Chair  of 
Geology,  which  he  resigned  in  1899.  . 

"  He  was  elected  a  Curator  October  2,  1883,  to  fill  a  vacancy 
caused  by  the  death  of  Charles  F.  Parker,  and  was  at  once 
appointed  Curator-in-Charge  by  the  Council.  He  served  the 
Academy  in  this  capacity  until  the  end  of  1892. 

"  He  at  once  began  important  changes  in  the  arrangement  of 
the  Museum,  and  started  the  formation  of  a  collection  illus- 
trating the  natural  history  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey. 
He  made  a  number  of  admirable  suggestions,  which  it  was  im- 
possible at  that  time  to  carry  out  because  of  the  slender  financial 
resources  of  the  Academy.  He  advocated  opening  the  Museum 
on  Sundays,  urged  the  formation  of  a  Museum  Endowment 
Fund  and  the  erection  of  a  lecture  room.  He  organized  a  popu- 
lar course  of  lectures  in  addition  to  those  delivered  by  the  pro- 
fessors. He  prepared  a  hand-book  to  the  Museum  and  gave 
most  effective  assistance  in  securing  appropriations  from  the 
legislature  in  1889  and  1891.  [Referring  in  the  report  of  the 
Curators  for  1892  to  the  operations  of  the  Trustees  and  the 
Building  Fund,  and  the  progress  made  in  the  erection  of  an 
addition  to  the  Academy,  Dr.  Ruschenberger  says,  '  for  a  large 
part  of  the  means  to  enable  the  Trustees  of  the  Building  Fund 
to  do  this  work,  it  seems  proper  to  mention  here,  that  the 
Academy  is  very  much  indebted  to  the  ability  and  steadiness  of 
purpose  of  Professor  Heilprin,  who  several  times  visited  Harris- 
burg  and  by  his  representation  to  members  thereof,  greatly  con- 
tributed to  satisfy  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania  of  the  worth- 
iness of  the  Academy  to  receive  pecuniary  assistance  from  the 
state.  Possibly  without  the  influence  of  his  intervention,  appro- 
priations might  not  have  been  granted  at  that  time.' " 


II 

VARIOUS  BOOKS  BY  ANGELO  HEILPRIN,  BASED 
ON  HIS  CONNECTION  WITH  THE  ACADEMY 
OF  NATUKAL  SCIENCES 

In  1884  Professor  Heilprin  published  a  volume  containing  a 
number  of  papers  which  had  originally  been  printed  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Academy.  The  book,  which  was  entitled 
Contributions  to  the  Tertiary  Geology  and  Palaeontology  of  th& 
United  States,  ,vf as  recognized  as  a  valuable  contribution  to 
science.  In  the  following  year  appeared  the  Town  Geology: 
The  Lesson  of  the  Philadelphia  Rocks,  which  contained  the  sub- 
stance of  the  author's  field-lectures  to  his  classes. 

In  simple  and  picturesque  language  he  illustrated  such  fa- 
miliar texts  as  "  The  Rocks  of  the  Schuylkill  and  Wissahickon," 
"White  Marble  Steps  and  Window  Facings,"  "  Brownstone 
Fronts  and  Jersey  Mud,"  and  "  Philadelphia  Brick  and 
Cobble-Stone,"  interpreting  by  their  aid  the  workings  of  Na- 
ture in  the  remote  past.  I  quote  from  the  chapter  on  "  White 
Marble  Steps  and  Window-Facings." 

"  If  we  take  a  chip  of  such  marble  and  drop  it  into  a  vial  con- 
taining one  of  the  stronger  acids,  as  nitric  or  sulphuric  acid, 
for  example,  it  will  be  observed  that  almost  immediately  a  pecu- 
liar boiling  or  effervescence  in  the  acid  takes  place,  and  that 
there  is  a  simultaneous  wasting  away  of  our  chip.  The  effer- 
vescence is  due  to  the  elimination  by  the  marble  of  innumerable 
tiny  bubbles  of  gas,  which  when  collected  and  analyzed  proves  to 
be  carbonic  acid,  the  same  that  produces  the  familiar  ebullition 
in  soda-water.  Evidently  the  marble  has  parted  with  some 
portion  of  its  substance,  but  its  final  disappearance  has  not  all 
been  brought  about  in  this  manner,  for  we  know  that  marble  is 
more  than  simple  gas.  The  rest  of  it  has  been  taken  up  by  the 
acid,  and  held  there  in  solution,  just  as  salt,  dipped  into  water, 
is  held  by  it  in  solution.  But  how  do  we  determine  what  the 


242  AKGELO   HEILPEIN 

residual  substance  may  be  ?  The  process  is  a  very  simple  one. 
Take  another  chip  of  marble,  and  subject  it  by  means  of  a  mouth 
blow-pipe  to  a  degree  of  heat  sufficient  to  bring  about  incandes- 
cence. In  a  short  time  you  will  have  completely  driven  out  the 
gas,  and  your  fragment  will  fall  in  the  form  of  a  white  powder. 
Analyzed,  this  powder  is  found  to  be  lime,  oxide  of  calcium,  the 
substance  which  is  frequently  seen  slaking,  in  the  process  of 
mortar  manufacture,  in  the  neighborhood  of  building  houses. 
Marble  is,  therefore,  a  compound  of  carbonic  acid  and  lime,  or, 
as  it  is  technically  termed,  a  carbonate  of  lime.  This  is  also  the 
composition  of  limestone,  of  the  minerals  known  as  CALCITE 
and  ABAGOtfiTE,  of  the  shells  of  shell-fish,  the  skeleton  or  '  poly- 
pary '  of  the  coral  animal,  and  of  true  chalk,  although  much  of 
the  chalk  of  commerce  is  an  artificial  compound.  This  prop- 
erty of  effervescing  in  minerals  is  possessed  by  most  carbonates, 
and  in  our  experiment  the  result  proves  that  the  avidity  of  the 
stronger  acids  for  the  lime  was  greater  than  that  possessed  by 
the  carbonic  acid,  which  had  consequently  been  driven  out.  The 
test  is  a  simple  one,  and  serves  as  a  ready  means  for  distinguish- 
ing limestones  and  marbles  from  rocks  of  an  entirely  different 
composition,  which  in  some  cases  closely  resemble  them. 

THE  NATURE  OP  !MABBLE 

Very  distinct  though  coral,  chalk,  and  marble  may  appear, 
they  have,  nevertheless,  in  most  cases,  a  common  origin;  they 
are  the  product  of  organic  forces.  This  is  self-evident  in  the 
first  case,  but  not  quite  so  in  the  remaining  two.  When,  how- 
ever, we  take  a  quantity  of  finely  powdered  chalk,  and  place 
the  particles  in  a  drop  of  water  under  the  microscope,  it  will  be 
readily  perceived  that  some  of  these  particles  possess  definite 
shapes,  the  organic  nature  of  which  cannot  for  a  moment  be 
doubted.  They  are  true  shells,  some  globular,  some  spiral,  and 
others  elongated,  belonging  in  most  cases  to  the  order  of  ani- 
mals known  as  the  FORAMINIFERA,  about  the  lowest  of  the  animal 
creation.  And  where  the  complete  form  is  not  always  recogniz- 
able the  numerous  fragments  scattered  about  indicate  that  the 
organisms  were  exceedingly  abundant,  and  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  they  actually  made  up  the  great  bulk  of  the  chalk  itself. 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  KOCKS "    243 

Having  determined  this  much,  and  reflecting  that  the  deposits 
of  chalk  extend  over  an  area  of  hundreds  of  miles  in  length, 
and  measure  in  places  hundreds  of  feet  in  thickness,  it  is  no 
longer  very  surprising  that  marble,  which  in  a  general  way  re- 
sembles chalk,  hardened  through  pressure,  and  which  shows  much 
the  same  chemical  and  physical  reactions,  should  have  a  similar 
structure.  It  is  true  that  most  pieces  of  marble  powdered  and 
placed  under  the  microscope  present  no  such  appearance  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  chalk;  there  are  neither  perfect  nor  im- 
perfect animal  parts  to  be  determined,  and,  therefore,  nothing 
to  suggest  an  organic  origin.  On  the  contrary,  even  the  naked 
eye  will  make  out  on  the  broken  surface  of  a  piece  of  marble  the 
crystallographic  faces  of  the  mineral  calcite,  showing  the  whole 
mass  to  be  distinctly  crystalline  in  its  formation.  But  it  is 
now  well  known  that  marble  is  nothing  but  altered  limestone 
—  common  limestone,  in  which,  through  the  influence  of  heat 
and  pressure,  a  true  crystalline  structure  has  been  brought 
about.  This  being  the  case,  it  might  be  inferred  that  lime- 
stones which  had  undergone  no  material  alteration  in  their 
parts  would,  when  carefully  examined,  show  distinct  organic 
traces;  the  supposition  is  a  correct  one,  for  in  almost  every 
block  of  such  limestone  (at  least  when  of  marine  origin)  the 
microscope  has  revealed  a  sufficiency  of  more  or  less  perfect 
shells,  or  other  fragments  of  animal  remains.  It  is  concluded 
from  this  fact  that  all  limestones,  except  such  as  may  be  de- 
posited by  fresh-waters,  are  of  organic  origin,  and  where,  as 
in  marble,  no  determinable  organic  traces  are  visible,  this  cir- 
cumstance must  be  taken  as  an  expression  of  the  obliteration  of 
parts  rather  than  of  their  absence.  And  were  any  further  proof 
of  this  position  needed,  it  might  be  said  that  in  many  cases  a 
distinctly  fossiliferous,  or  non-altered,  limestone  can  be  directly 
traced  into  the  crystalline,  or  non-fossiliferous,  marble.  Lime- 
stones occur  in  all  grades  of  structure,  from  the  coarse  shell- 
rock,  '  Coquina '  —  such  as  we  now  find  forming  along  the 
Florida  coast,  where  the  component  shells,  or  their  fragments, 
are  well  marked  out  in  size  and  character  —  to  the  fine-grained 
or  compact  varieties,  in  which,  for  the  most  part,  the  unassisted 
eye  fails  to  distinguish  individual  forms.  But  few,  if  any,  fos- 
sils have  thus  far  been  detected  in  the  true  limestones  about 


244  ANGELO   HEILPRIK 

Philadelphia,  a  circumstance,  doubtless,  in  great  part  due  to 
the  metamorphism  to  which  the  rock  was  subjected  during  the 
process  of  lateral  crushing.  It  is  by  no  means  impossible,  how- 
ever, that  in  the  less  altered  deposits  the  outlines  of  some  lowly 
types  of  organisms  may  yet  be  revealed  by  the  microscope. 

LIMESTONE  VALLEYS 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  physiographical  feature  in  the 
region  about  Philadelphia  is  the  long  and  narrow  depression 
occupied  by  the  limestones,  known  as  Montgomery  and  Chester 
Valleys.  Looking  north  from  an  eminence,  like  Chestnut  Hill, 
the  eye  sees  stretched  before  it  a  somewhat  undulating  monoto- 
nous plain,  extending  east  and  west  to  about  the  limits  of  vision, 
and  across  for  a  distance  of  some  three  or  four  miles.  On  either 
side  rise  elevations  of  moderate  height,  the  rocks  composing 
which  are  gneisses  and  sandstones,  both  on  the  north  and  on  the 
afcuth ;  the  first  rock  to  meet  the  limestone  is  the  Cambrian  sand- 
stone, which  dips  beneath  it  along  both  boundaries,  and  con- 
sequently underlies  the  floor  of  the  valley.  The  limestone  rests 
on  top,  and  is  thereby  proved  to  be  of  newer  date.  Although 
now  occupying  a  comparatively  narrow  area  there  is  every  in- 
dication that  at  a  former  geological  period  it  had  a  vast  extent, 
and  not  improbably  the  sea  depositing  it  stretched  hence  half 
across  the  continent  Being  a  rock  readily  soluble  in  water,  it 
has  suffered  greatly  through  erosion,  and  has  left  to  the  geolo- 
gist only  a  mere  indication  of  its  former  development.  How 
far  it  rose  above  its  present  surface  it  is  impossible  to  conjec- 
ture, but  there  can  be  little  or  no  question  that  it  at  one  time 
covered  the  sandstone  ridge  both  north  and  south  of  it,  from 
which  it  has  since  been  removed  through  the  time-wearing  action 
of  water.  The  relation  of  rock  structure  to  the  configuration 
of  the  land  surface,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  scenery,  is 
here  beautifully  exhibited.  The  rock  (limestone)  most  readily 
yielding  to  the  disintegrating  forces  has  suffered  more  waste 
than  the  rock  (sandstone)  which  by  its  compactness  and  insolu- 
bility has  been  better  able  to  resist  the  action  of  water ;  the  one 
has  weathered  '  low,'  whereas  the  other  has  weathered  '  high.' 
These  differences  in  the  behavior  of  rocks,  which  underlie  the 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  EOCKS  "    245 

manifold  aspects  under  which  the  landscape  presents  itself  to 
our  eyes,  are  a  guide-line  to  the  geologist,  fixing  for  him  the 
positions  of  rocks  possibly  far  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  per- 
sonal examination.  The  generally  flat  appearance  of  the  lime- 
stone valley,  as  seen  from  the  hill-top,  may  lead  one  to  suppose 
that  the  rocks  composing  it  were  disposed  horizontally,  and  that 
little  or  no  disturbance  had  affected  the  positions  which  they 
had  normally  assumed  when  first  laid  down.  That  such  is  not 
the  case,  however,  can  be  proved  in  almost  every  locality  where 
the  limestone  is  exposed  in  mass ;  the  strata  dip  at  a  steep  angle. 

MAEBLE  QUAEEIES 

About  a  mile  due  north  of  Spring  Mill,  and  reached  by  the 
main  road  connecting  Spring  Mill  with  Plymouth,  are  Potts' 
marble  quarries,  where  one  of  the  finest  exposures  of  rock  in  the 
entire  valley  is  to  be  had.  Almost  immediately  after  leaving 
the  station,  just  outside  the  mill,  the  road  skirts  for  a  short 
distance  a  stream  of  transcendent  purity,  whose  presence  has 
given  the  name  to  the  locality  which  it  feeds.  In  the  meadows 
lying  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  here  on  the  left  of  the 
road,  opposite  to  where  a  branch  road  leads  off  to  Marble  Hall, 
are  located  the  '  Springs  of  Spring  Mill,'  whose  inspection  will 
well  repay  a  detour  of  a  few  minutes.  At  numerous  points  here 
in  the  meadow  springs,  as  clear  as  crystal,  rise  from  clefts  in 
the  underlying  rock,  evidently  forced  up  by  pressure  exerted 
from  some  higher  ground.  Observe  the  dancing  mounds  of  sand 
and  earth,  thrown  up  by  the  force  of  liberated  bubbles  of  com- 
pressed air,  whose  intermittent  action  recalls  the  work  of  minia- 
ture geysers  and  volcanoes.  Rounded  masses  of  '  trap '  rock, 
derived  from  a  volcanic  dyke  that  runs  to  near,  and  beyond  this 
point  due  east  from  Conshohocken,  lie  scattered  about  between 
the  line  of  the  main  stream  and  the  bounding  fence  of  the 
meadow.  Continuing  on  the  high-road,  which  runs  for  a  short 
distance  over  a  region  of  micaceous  slates  (HYDEO-MICA 
SCHISTS),  whose  relations  to  the  surrounding  rocks  have  not  yet, 
perhaps,  been  very  clearly  determined,  we  reach  almost  imme- 
diately the  line  of  the  trap-dyke  itself  —  which  here  crosses  the 
road  as  a  prominent  swell,  and  whose  debris  (boulders)  are  scat- 


246  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

tered  about  along  the  hill-slopes  and  in  the  hollows  —  beyond 
which  the  white  surface  of  the  suddenly  rising  ground  indicates 
the  limestone  country.  At  Potts'  quarry  the  limestone,  or  rather 
marble,  rises  to  a  height  of  some  45  or  50  feet  above  the  base 
line,  forming  a  picturesque  bluff  on  the  west  side  of  the  excava- 
tion. The  strata,  which  dip  at  a  steep  angle  to  the  south,  are 
alternately  interbedded  in  white  and  blue  layers,  varying  from 
several  inches  to  feet  in  thickness.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the 
quarry,  i.  e.  on  the  east,  the  wall  of  rock  shows  distinct  lines 
of  separation  running  at  right-angles  to  the  lines  of  bedding, 
probably  brought  about  by  a  contraction  of  the  rock.  These  are 
known  to  the  geologist  as  lines  of  JOINTING,  whose  existence,  as 
might  naturally  be  inferred,  materially  facilitates  the  work  of 
quarrying.  Limestone  deposits  are  especially  favored  by  such 
transverse  jointing.  The  operation  of  marble-splitting  as  here 
practiced  is  a  very  simple  one.  Holes  of  considerable  depth, 
and  disposed  in  a  linear  series,  are  first  drilled  into  the  rock; 
these  are  then  filled  with  wooden  wedges,  and  these  in  turn 
forced  apart  by  means  of  iron  bars  being  driven  into  them. 
The  rock,  not  being  able  to  withstand  the  steadily  applied  pres- 
sure, is  compelled  to  yield,  and  a  split  along  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  or  along  the  bedding  planes,  results. 

AN  ABANDONED  MARBLE  OPENING 

A  branch  road  starting  from  the  cluster  of  houses  situated  just 
outside  the  marble  cuttings  leads  off  to  the  Ridge  Road,  follow- 
ing which  (to  the  right)  for  a  distance  of  about  a  mile  and  a 
half,  we  come  to  the  largest  and  most  imposing  marble  opening 
in  the  region.  The  locality,  Marble  Hall,  derives  its  name  from 
the  circumstance  that  the  marble  in  the  vicinity  is  exposed  in  a 
long  channel  or  '  hall,'  which  has  been  quarried  vertically  from 
the  surface,  and  which  extends  downward  to  a  depth  of  200  feet 
or  more.  There  are  no  true  surface  diggings.  The  strata  here 
dip  vertically,  or  nearly  so,  and  the  horizontally  disposed  lines 
which  appear  when  looking  into  the  hall,  and  which  look  like 
lines  of  bedding,  are  in  reality  jointing  planes.  The  '  breasts  ' 
of  marble  which  unite  the  opposite  lateral  walls  have  been  left 
standing  in  order  to  prevent  a  possible  cave  of  the  wall  on  either 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  ROCKS  "    247 

side.  Owing  to  the  great  expense  necessarily  attendant  on  the 
hauling  of  rock  from  such  a  great  depth,  the  works  have  been 
for  some  years  practically  abandoned,  and  large  quantities  of 
water  allowed  to  accumulate  in  the  bottom  of  the  trough.  The 
effect  of  deep  clear  water  (150  feet)  in  absorbing  the  rays  of 
light  is  beautifully  shown  in  the  dark,  nearly  black,  color,  under 
which  the  surface  appears,  a  condition  analogous  to  that  which 
distinguishes  many  small  deep  lakes  of  elevated  mountain 
regions. 

The  most  extensive  of  the  excavations  about  here  is  situated 
a  short  piece  back  of  the  country  store;  another,  considerably 
smaller,  and  containing  more  of  the  bluestone,  may  be  seen  a 
little  lower  down  on  the  Barren  Hill  road. 

THE  ROCKS  OF  THE  WISSAHICKON 

Just  south  of  Marble  Hall,  forming  the  boundary  between  the 
limestone  and  an  adjoining  narrow  belt  of  slates  (hydro-mica 
schists),  is  the  line  of  the  trap-dyke,  which  may  be  traced  by  its 
outcrop  and  a  long  line  of  boulders  from  beyond  Mechanicsville, 
through  Conshohocken,  to  this  point,  a  distance  of  several  miles. 
Following  these  boulders  beyond  Marble  Hall  for  about  two 
miles  through  the  wooded  slopes  and  over  the  open  meadow  we 
reach  the  Wissahickon,  whose  southerly  course  from  Valley 
Green  is  deflected  by  the  resisting  barrier  of  trap,  along  whose 
northern  face  it  flows  for  some  distance,  and  then  breaks  through 
at  a  point  shortly  after  crossing  the  Chestnut  Hill-Lancasterville 
pike.  The  hard  rock  is  seen  to  cross  the  channel  of  the  water, 
and  to  continue  beyond  in  a  serial  line  of  boulders  of  singular 
regularity.  Observe  the  elevated  rampart-like  undulation  of  the 
meadow  leading  hence  to  the  high-road,  which  marks  the  trap- 
ridge  whence  the  boulders  were  originally  derived,  but  which 
now  lies  buried  beneath  a  capping  of  soil. 

This  most  picturesque  spot  in  the  centre  of  the  valley,  whose 
air  of  quietude  is  only  broken  by  the  babbling  of  the  brook,  and 
the  garrulous  cawing  of  the  crows  in  the  tree-tops  overhead,  may 
be  reached  in  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  from  the  toll-gate 
at  the  foot  of  Chestnut  Hill  by  following  the  line  of  the  Lan- 
casterville  pike.  Immediately  after  leaving  the  gate  we  traverse 


248  AKGELO   HEILPRItf 

a  narrow  tract  where  there  are  no  exposures,  and  where,  conse- 
quently, the  rock  formation  is  not  indicated.  But  from  our 
knowledge  of  the  positions  occupied  by  the  Laurentian  series 
both  east  and  west  of  us,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  it  underlies 
the  soil  at  this  point  also.  The  gentle  swell  ahead,  with  its 
distinctively  white  road-crossing,  marks  the  narrow  belt  of  quartz 
rock  which  we  have  already  learned  to  recognize  as  Cambrian, 
and  which,  a  short  piece  to  our  left  (Convent),  we  had  found 
dipping  in  the  direction  of  the  valley.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill 
we  set  foot  upon  the  limestone.  Where  the  limestone  is  ex- 
posed it  can  be  seen  to  conform  more  or  less  closely  in  position 
to  the  sandstone ;  in  other  words,  the  beds  decline  or  dip  away 
from  you,  or  in  the  direction  of  north.  This  disposition  holds 
continuously  until  a  short  distance  beyond  the  crossing  of  the 
trap-dyke  (or  Wissahickon),  where  the  strata  suddenly  reverse 
their  position,  pitching  steeply  to  the  south.  The  extensive 
limestone  openings  situated  on  either  side  of  the  road  a  little 
this  side  of  Williams'  station,  on  the  Plymouth  Railroad,  dis- 
tinctly exhibit  this  arrangement  of  the  strata.  The  rise  imme- 
diately back  of  Williams'  is  formed  by  an  arch  or  roll  (anti- 
clinal) of  the  underlying  Cambrian  quartz  rock,  which  cuts  off 
the  limestone  at  this  point,  but  permits  it  to  reappear  in  a  de- 
pression or  trough  (synclinal)  on  its  further  side,  where  it  is 
again  cut  off  by  a  second  elevation  of  the  older  quartzite.  This 
last  is  beautifully  shown  in  the  wooded  hill  to  the  left,  opposite 
to  where,  as  marked  by  a  sign-post,  a  crossroad  leads  off  to  Flour- 
town.  The  rock,  which  inclines  at  an  angle  of  some  60-70  de- 
grees, is  a  tough  reddish  quartzite,  ringing  when  struck  with  the 
hammer.  The  individual  particles  of  sand  of  which  it  was 
originally  made  up  —  for  when  formed  the  rock  was  a  true  sand- 
stone—  have  through  the  influence  of  pressure  and  heat  been 
compacted  into  a  homogeneous  substance,  along  whose  surface 
a  granular  structure  is  but  barely,  if  at  all,  observable. 

A  NEW  FORMATION 

The  elevated  wooded  ridge  which  runs  for  some  miles  almost 
due  east  from  this  point,  and  which,  as  the  northern  boundary 
of  the  limestone  valley,  forms  such  a  prominent  feature  in  the 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  KOCKS"    249 

landscape,  marks  the  outcrop  of  the  Cambrian  quartzite.  Here, 
therefore,  as  on  the  south  side,  we  have  the  same  distinctive 
separation  of  the  rock  of  the  valley  from  that  of  its  boundaries. 
Continuing  in  the  direction  of  Blue  Bell  we  note  a  sudden  and 
interesting  change  in  the  physiognomy  of  the  country.  The  road 
we  are  travelling  upon  has  assumed  a  reddish  tint,  which  in- 
creases in  intensity  the  further  we  proceed.  Examined  carefully 
it  is  seen  that  this  red  color  is  due  to  the  powdering  up  of  frag- 
ments of  a  shaly  rock,  quite  distinct  from  the  rock  which  we 
had  last  left.  Evidently,  we  have  struck  a  new  formation,  whose 
presence  is  indicated  by  the  character  of  the  superficial  soil. 
For  fully  twenty-five  miles  across  the  country,  and  in  a  north- 
east and  southwest  line  cutting  completely  across  the  corner  of 
Pennsylvania  and  through  the  States  of  Maryland  and  New 
Jersey,  this  red-rock,  known  to  geologists  as  the  TEIASSIC  shales 
and  sandstones,  extends  uninterruptedly.  Norristown  is  situ- 
ated on  it,  and  so  are  Bridgeport,  Valley  Forge,  and  Phcenix- 
ville.  At  almost  every  locality  of  its  occurrence  the  strata  dip 
uniformly  to  the  northwest,  and  in  many  places  they  can  be  seen 
to  rest  upon  either  the  Cambrian  sandstone,  or  the  valley  lime- 
stone (Silurian),  proving  it  to  be  of  more  recent  origin. 

Putting  together  the  notes  that  we  have  taken  in  the  field  bear- 
ing upon  the  structure  of  the  valley  —  say  at  about  its  middle 
part  —  and  a  little  way  beyond  on  either  side,  let  us  see  what  we 
can  make  of  them.  In  the  first  place  we  have,  beginning  at  the 
Chestnut  Hill  slope,  the  oldest  of  the  rocks  known  in  the  region 
—  namely,  the  Laurentian  gneiss  or  syenite  —  which  stand  up 
nearly  vertically,  or  decline  somewhat  in  the  direction  of  the 
valley.  Following  these,  and  resting  on  their  northern  flank,  is 
the  Edge  Hill  rock,  or  Cambrian  sandstone,  which  dips  beneath 
the  limestone  forming  the  floor  of  the  valley.  Just  back  of  Wil- 
liams' station  this  sandstone  rises  up  in  the  form  of  a  roll  or 
arch  (anticlinal),  which  separates  the  large  basin-like  depres- 
sion, forming  the  valley  proper,  on  the  south  from  a  similar, 
but  much  smaller,  depression  on  the  north.  Over  this  roll  the 
limestone  strata  of  the  valley  were  at  one  time  carried  in  a  con- 
tinuous sheet,  but  the  waste  which  the  rocks  have  suffered 
through  mechanical  disintegration  and  chemical  solution  has 
actually  lowered  their  surface  beneath  that  of  the  much  more  re- 


250  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

sisting  underlying  sandstone.  The  further  boundary  of  the 
valley  is  formed  by  another  rise  of  the  Cambrian  rock,  which, 
doubtless,  is  the  continuation  of  the  rock  which  forms  the  roll 
back  of  Williams'.  Finally,  resting  on  top  of  this  rock,  and  dip- 
ping at  a  moderate  angle  towards  the  northwest,  we  have  Triassic 
red-shales  and  sandstone,  and  under  them  again,  the  Laurentian 
syenite.  Evidently,  judging  from  the  position  which  the  rock 
masses  now  occupy,  they  must  have  at  one  time  risen  to  heights 
very  much  greater  than  what  they  now  represent.  The  present 
outline  of  the  land  surface  is  due  to  the  ceaseless  wearing  action 
of  water  and  the  atmosphere. 

A  CAMBRIAN  BEACH 

The  history  of  the  formation  of  the  region  is  approximately 
as  follows :  On  top,  and  not  unlikely  in  a  trough,  of  the  ancient 
Laurentian  gneisses  were  deposited  the  sediments  of  the  Cam- 
brian and  Silurian  seas,  the  former  first,  then  the  latter  on  top  of 
these.  How  long  a  period  of  time  intervened  between  the  two 
depositions  it  is  impossible  even  to  conjecture,  but  it  was,  doubt- 
less, vast,  and  long  enough  to  permit  of  very  extensive  altera- 
tions taking  place  on  the  land  surface.  We  have  stood  upon  the 
Cambrian  beach  at  Willow  Grove,  and  found  it  to  be  largely 
made  up  of  blue-quartz  pebbles,  proving  that  the  Cambrian  bil- 
lows swept  the  shores  of  Laurentian  syenite,  as  the  modern  bil- 
lows still  do  in  the  more  northerly  parts  of  the  continent.  The 
beach  line  does  not,  however,  necessarily  indicate  that  the  sea 
stopped  here.  A  submergence  of  the  land  may  have  carried  the 
water  still  higher  over  its  surface,  burying  deep  the  beach  that 
was  primarily  formed ;  and  not  impossibly  this  is  what  actually 
took  place.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  the  sea  was  a  com- 
paratively shallow  one,  but  that  it  gradually  deepened  with  the 
approach  of  the  Silurian  period,  permitting  of  those  vast  accu- 
mulations of  the  remains  of  deeper-sea  organisms  which  we  rec- 
ognize in  the  limestones  and  marbles  of  the  valley.  How  far, 
and  how  continuously,  this  sea  may  have  stretched  toward  the 
west  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  it  may  have  been  a  thousand 
miles,  or  considerably  more.  Shell-fish,  most  of  them  of  forms 
unknown  at  the  present  day,  but,  again,  others  very  closely  re- 


"  LESSORS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  ROCKS "    251 

lated  to,  and  barely  distinguishable  from,  types  still  living,  had 
already  attained  a  profuse  development  during  this  period ;  the 
coral-animals  built  up  gigantic  walls  of  rock,  true  reefs;  and 
microscopic  one-celled  animals  encased  in  shells,  the  Forami- 
nifera,  swarmed  in  countless  multitudes  within  the  ancient 
waters.  But  of  all  these  varied  forms  of  life,  which  are  abun- 
dant elsewhere,  not  a  recognizable  trace  is  to  be  discovered 
about  Philadelphia;  their  remains  have  been  merged  into  the 
solid  rock  of  the  valley.  An  incipient  vegetation  had  already 
in  some  parts  begun  to  cover  the  land-surface,  and  lowly  forms 
of  insects,  doubtless,  tenanted  the  air.  The  singular  trilobite, 
precursor  of  the  modern  king-crab,  burrowed  in  the  soft  mud  of 
the  oceanic  littoral,  while  various  shrimp-like  creatures  darted 
through  the  tangles  of  the  gracefully-tufted  stone-lily  (crinoid). 
But  of  the  higher  forms  of  animal  life,  the  fishes,  amphibians, 
reptiles,  birds,  and  mammals,  we  as  yet  know  nothing;  they 
appear  later  on  the  scene,  the  fishes  first,  the  amphibians  next, 
and  the  reptiles  third,  or  in  the  direct  order  of  their  development. 

AN  ANCIENT  DYKE 

The  Cambrian  and  Silurian  sediments  were  at  first  horizontal, 
or  nearly  so,  but  through  a  contraction  of  the  crust,  resulting  in 
the  upheaval  of  the  entire  mass,  we  had  brought  about  that 
crumpling  and  folding  whose  effects  are  witnessed  in  the  more 
or  less  vertical  disposition  of  the  strata,  and  in  the  alternation 
of  anticlinal  elevations  and  synclinal  depressions,  which  are  no- 
ticeable at  Williams',  and  in  the  two  valleys  on  either  side.  At 
a  much  later  period,  the  period  when  the  highest  class  of  ani- 
mals, the  Mammalia,  first  broke  upon  the  light  of  day,  an  estuary 
of  the  sea  from  the  north,  or  possibly  a  river  flowing  from  the 
south,  deposited  the  red-shale  and  sandstone,  but  not  before  the 
land-surface  upon  which  they  were  laid  down  had  been  very 
greatly  worn;  and  probably  about  the  same  time,  or  a  little 
later,  a  long  line  of  volcanic  or  trap  rock  was  forced  through  the 
crust,  cutting  the  limestone  in  the  form  of  a  more  or  less  con- 
tinuous dyke.  This  dyke  is  still  clearly  marked  out  in  a  low, 
well-defined,  rampart-like  ridge,  which  traverses  the  valley  longi- 
tudinally, and  in  a  linear  series  of  dissociated  boulders  which 


252  ASTGELO   HEILPKIN 

effect  its  continuation.  From  that  time  to  this  the  region  has 
probably  been  out  of  water,  and  has  been  undergoing  those  grad- 
ual modifications  in  outline  which  have  resulted  in  producing 
its  present  features. 

A  "  FAULT  "  IN  THE  KOCK 

The  exposures  of  limestone  along  the  river  front  are  numer- 
ous, and  can  be  studied  to  advantage  in  the  few  miles  that  inter- 
vene between  Norristown  and  Conshohocken.  In  the  first  cut 
south  of  Norristown,  Mogee's,  the  strata,  which  alternate  in  beds 
of  various  degrees  of  coarseness,  and  in  shades  of  blue,  white, 
drab,  and  red,  dip  steeply  to  the  south,  measuring  an  angle  of 
about  40°.  Immediately  on  entering  the  cut  we  notice  on  the 
right  a  vertical  split  in  the  rock,  the  strata  on  the  opposite  sides 
of  which  are  not  absolutely  continuous  with  each  other.  There 
has  evidently  been  a  displacement,  by  which  one  side  was  dropped 
a  piece  below  the  other.  Just  what  caused  this  FAULT  in  the  rock 
it  is  impossible  to  determine,  but  it  is,  doubtless,  due  to  an  exist- 
ing tension  in  the  mass.  Although  the  amount  of  displacement, 
or  '  throw,'  of  the  fault  is  here  very  insignificant,  indeed  but 
barely  appreciable,  it  is  of  the  same  kind  as  that  which  in  many 
districts  has  elevated  strata  thousands  of  feet  above  their  normal 
positions,  or,  as  the  case  may  have  been,  dropped  them  to  the 
same  extent.  A  more  pronounced  fault  occurs  in  the  red  rock 
just  beyond  the  further  end  of  the  cut,  where  the  line  of  fault- 
ing, or  '  hade,'  runs  diagonally  across  the  beds.  Observe  that 
on  the  north  side  of  the  fracture  the  beds  that  have  dropped  are 
turned  or  '  brushed '  up  against  the  line  of  the  fault. 

BEDS  OF  "  BLUE-STONE  " 

Continuing  southward  the  beds  become  more  and  more  com- 
pact, and  are  deficient  in  the  sandy  layers  which  are  met  with 
above.  They  evidently  belong  to  deeper  water  than  that  which 
deposited  the  more  northerly,  or  underlying,  beds,  and  bear  tes- 
timony to  being  deposited  further  from  the  shore-line.  From  a 
favorable  point  on  the  water  a  fine  view  may  be  had  of  the  suc- 
cessive exposures  following  each  other  in  the  direction  of  Con- 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  ROCKS"    253 

shohbcken,  the  strata  in  all  cases  dipping  much  the  same  way. 
The  inclination  of  dip  steadily  increases,  however,  until  at  Con- 
shohocken,  where  the  limestone  alternates  with  slaty  layers,  the 
angle  measured  is  60°.  Back  of  the  town,  and  directly  opposite 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  river,  a  number  of  quarries  have  been 
opened,  which  furnish  the  well-known  Conshohocken  '  blue- 
stone,'  so  extensively  used  for  building  purposes,  curb-stones, 
etc.  Much  of  the  marble  of  our  city  that  we  see  in  door-steps, 
and  otherwise,  is  obtained  from  the  valley  deposits,  although  not 
a  little,  especially  that  used  in  window-facings,  is  imported  from 
deposits  of  nearly  equivalent  age  occurring  in  Vermont  and  else- 
where. It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  limestone  of  the  valley  has 
been  converted  into  marble  principally  on  the  south  side,  whereas 
on  the  north  it  has  been  more  or  less  impregnated  with  magnesia, 
forming  a  magnesian  limestone,  or  DOLOMITE." 

In  another  chapter,  that  on  "  Our  Oldest  Patch  of  Land," 
Professor  Heilprin  said : 

"  North  of  the  line  of  the  Philadelphia  schists  and  gneisses, 
and  extending  from  Trenton  on  the  Delaware  to  West  Chester 
and  beyond,  there  runs  a  comparatively  narrow  belt  of  rock 
bearing  in  many  points  of  structure  a  striking  resemblance  to 
the  rocks  which  we  have  just  been  studying,  but  which,  again, 
in  many  respects  departs  widely  from  them.  The  granites, 
syenites,  and  gneisses  of  this  region,  usually  classed  with  the 
Laurentian  series,  are  the  oldest  rocks  of  the  neighborhood  of 
Philadelphia,  and  represent  practically  the  foundation  rock  of 
the  continent.  Throughout  the  greater  part  of  their  extent  they 
define  a  prominent  ridge,  readily  distinguishable  in  places  as 
forming  the  southern  boundary  of  the  limestone  valley  lying  to 
the  north.  The  toughness  of  the  rock  and  its  resistance  to  ero- 
sion have  combined  to  preserve  it  for  a  much  greater  length  of 
time  than  the  limestone,  which,  though  of  much  newer  date, 
yielding  readily  to  the  solvent  action  of  water,  has  been  reduced 
to  a  comparatively  low  level.  We  say  that  the  limestone  has 
*  weathered  low,'  whereas  the  Laurentian  rocks  have  '  weathered 
high ' ;  and  it  is  this  comparative  weathering,  depending  upon 
the  relative  resisting  powers  of  the  rock-masses,  which  so  mani- 
festly controls  the  physiognomic  aspects  of  the  landscape.  Were 


254  AKGELO   HEILPRDsf 

it  not  that  some  rocks  yield  more  readily  to  the  disintegrating 
influences  than  others,  the  landscape  would  be  devoid  of  those 
manifold  charms  which  are  lent  to  it  by  the  sudden  alternations 
of  hill  and  dale,  mountain  and  valley. 


GEANITIC  ROCKS 

A  fine  exposure  of  the  Laurentian  rocks  is  had  on  the  new 
Schuylkill  Railroad,  beginning  about  one-half  mile  north  of  La- 
fayette station,  and  extending  to  Spring  Mill.  After  passing 
the  first  road  crossing  beyond  Lafayette,  which  approximately 
marks  the  boundary  between  the  older  and  newer  formations, 
the  railway  skirts  the  base  of  a  hill  along  whose  slope  the  rocks 
are  well  exposed.  Almost  immediately  beyond  the  broad  band 
of  white  granite  which  meets  the  eye  on  the  right,  we  enter  a 
region  of  blue  or  blackish  rocks,  whose  peculiar  color  is  due  to 
the  prevailing  (bluish)  tint  of  the  quartz  and  to  numerous  dark- 
colored  crystals  or  grains  of  hornblende.  We  note  here,  in  fact, 
that  the  mica  scales  of  the  Philadelphia  series  of  rocks  have  in 
large  part  been  replaced  by  hornblende;  and  further,  that  the 
rock-masses  have  pretty  much  lost  that  foliated  structure  dis- 
tinctive of  typical  gneiss  and  mica-schist,  and  that  they  are  in  a 
general  way  more  decidedly  granitic  in  appearance.  They  are 
the  rock  commonly  designated  SYENITE,  differing  from  granite 
in  the  substitution  of  hornblende  for  mica,  and  from  gneiss  in 
the  absence  of  the  foliated  structure.  But  insensible  grada- 
tional  shades  unite  the  one  with  the  other,  as  can  be  seen  by  the 
boulders  lying  on  the  left  of  the  road,  where  in  some  cases  the 
hornblende  has  completely  disappeared,  leaving  the  rock  a 
coarse-grained  granite,  composed  of  quartz  and  flesh-colored 
feldspar;  and,  again,  where  this  same  granite  shows  a  tendency 
to  foliation,  passing  off  into  gneiss. 

Under  what  appears  to  be  the  highest  point  of  the  hill  the 
beds  lie  nearly  vertically,  although  it  is  not  a  little  difficult  from 
the  nature  of  the  exposure  to  determine  just  exactly  what  posi- 
tions they  do  occupy.  At  about  the  point  where  the  strata  first 
show  a  decided  declination  toward  the  north  the  rocks  assume 
what  might  be  considered  to  be  the  typical  Laurentian  facies; 
fresh  fractures  clearly  exhibit  the  distinctive  blue  quartz  and  an 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  ROCKS"    255 

abundance  of  the  black  hornblende  crystals.  Old  surfaces,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  largely  yellowish  or  brownish,  due  to  the  oxi- 
dation of  the  contained  iron.  Passing  northward  the  inclination 
of  the  strata  becomes  less  and  less  pronounced ;  through  a  series 
of  gentle  undulations  they  gradually  assume  the  horizontal  posi- 
tion, until,  about  300  yards  this  side  of  Spring  Mill  station,  they 
suddenly  become  highly  plicated  and  contorted,  recalling  in  their 
convolutions  and  general  appearance  the  gneisses  along  the  Wis- 
sahickon.  Two  or  three  rolls  of  rock,  sharply  defined  by  the 
curves  of  plication,  stand  out  in  prominent  relief  from  the  wall 
of  which  they  form  a  part.  From  this  point  to  Spring  Mill, 
where  the  formation  disappears,  the  dip  is  uniformly  to  the 
north. 

ROCKS  OF  UNCEETAIN  DETEEMINATION 

The  Laurentian  rocks  may  be  traced  eastward  from  Spring 
Mill  by  following  the  line  of  the  ridge  a  little  below  the  crest, 
which  is  formed  by  the  gneisses  of  the  Philadelphia  series. 
Over  a  considerable  extent,  however,  their  determination  is  made 
difficult  or  impossible  from  the  scarcity  of  outcrops,  and  from 
the  circumstance  that  in  many  places  they  are  overlaid  by  the 
sandstones  of  a  newer  formation,  the  Cambrian,  lying  on  the 
north  flank.  On  the  heights  between  Lafayette  and  Matawna 
and  Barren  Hill  the  nature  of  the  underlying  rock  is  indicated 
by  the  hornblendic  boulders  which  everywhere  lie  scattered 
about,  and  by  occasional  outcrops  of  the  rock  itself.  An  outcrop 
of  the  blue  beds  occurs  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Wissahickon, 
just  where  that  stream  enters  the  hilly  country  from  the  White 
Marsh  Valley,  not  far  above  the  last  bridge  which  carries  the 
road  over  to  Chestnut  Hill,  and  just  beyond  the  now  largely 
overgrown  granite  quarry. 


LAUBENTIAN  Km 

Forming  part  of  the  northern  declivity  of  Chestnut  Hill, 
where,  however,  the  formation  is  almost  entirely  hid  from  view 
beneath  the  capping  of  soil,  the  Laurentian  reappears  to  the  east 
as  a  rather  prominent  ridge  flanking  Edge  Hill  on  the  south. 
Passing  north  from  Jenkintown,  on  the  Abington  road,  the 


256  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

traveller  soon  leaves  the  Philadelphia  gneisses  behind  him,  and 
mounting  by  easy  stages  a  long  eastwardly  trending  hill  finds 
himself  in  the  midst  of  rocks  where  decomposition  has  made 
severe  havoc,  but  where  certain  characters  still  betray  the  rela- 
tionship with  the  Laurentian  series.  Opposite  Mooretown  the 
strata  stand  on  their  edges,  inclining  slightly  toward  the  south; 
the  character  of  the  gneiss  has  here  so  far  changed  through  de- 
composition as  to  render  it  difficult  at  first  sight  to  determine  to 
just  which  of  a  particular  group  of  rocks  it  may  belong.  But 
the  more  compact  boulders  that  here  and  there  lie  scattered  over 
the  road  on  to  Abington,  and  to  the  heights  of  Hillside,  with 
their  masses  of  blue  quartz  and  dark  crystals  of  hornblende, 
leave  no  room  for  doubt  in  the  matter,  and  clearly  point  to  the 
rocks  which  we  recognized  on  the  Schuylkill  as  Laurentian  to  be 
their  nearest  of  kin. 


WHITE  SANDSTONE 

Looking  up  the  long  straight  road  which  leads  off  to  the  left 
from  Abington  crossing,  with  the  rays  of  the  sun  falling  on  the 
line  of  heights  which  shuts  in  the  landscape  in  this  direction, 
the  observer  will  not  fail  to  notice  a  sudden  alternation  in  the 
character  of  the  road-bed  ahead.  The  distant  white,  contrasting 
sharply  with  the  more  sombre  gray  of  the  foreground,  indicates 
the  existence  of  a  new  formation.  The  rocks  there  are  no  longer 
gneisses  or  syenites,  but  sandstones  (Cambrian),  whose  light 
color  gives  the  peculiar  white  which  is  so  eminently  marked  out 
against  the  mass  of  sky  and  foliage.  Thus,  by  the  character  of 
the  soil  alone,  we  frequently  determine  the  bounding  line  of  a 
formation. 

The  gentle  swell  of  country  eastward,  picturesquely  dotted 
with  villages  and  country  residences,  marks  the  outline  of  the 
same  resisting  gneisses  and  syenites  in  their  trend  (strike)  to 
the  Delaware  River.  The  hard  rock  everywhere  asserts  its  su- 
premacy over  the  rock  of  weaker  constitution,  standing  out 
prominently  where  the  latter  has  been  washed  away.  Landscape 
conforms  to  physical  laws,  and  is  thus  made  a  powerful  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  geologist. 

West  of  the  Schuylkill  the  Laurentian  area  steadily  widens, 


"LESSONS  OF  THE  PHILADELPHIA  KOCKS"    257 

and  overspreads  a  large  part  of  Delaware  and  Chester  Counties ; 
in  its  general  aspect  it  presents  the  same  features  as  the  region 
to  the  east,  and  therefore  requires  no  special  consideration.  The 
prominent  wooded  ridge,  whose  reflection  is  cast  into  the  river 
opposite  Spring  Mill,  and  whose  noble  outline  seems  worthy  of 
a  more  picturesque  foreground  than  is  constituted  by  the  red 
roofs  and  black  chimneys  of  busy  Conshohocken,  marks  the  pas- 
sage of  the  belt  across  the  Schuylkill. 

EVIDENCES  OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  EARLY  LIFE 

The  Laurentian  being  the  basement  or  foundation  rock  of  the 
region  about  —  i.  e.}  the  oldest — we  would  naturally  look  for  its 
fragments  in  rocks  of  newer  date,  or  such  as  must  have  derived 
their  materials  primarily  from  the  destruction  of  this  series.  All 
mechanically  formed  rocks,  whether  they  be  gneisses,  schists, 
shales,  clays,  or  sandstones,  are  built  up  from  the  materials  of 
previously  existing  rock-masses,  and  must  hence  contain  in  their 
own  substance  the  substance  of  the  parental  rock,  or  that  from 
which  they  were  born.  And  where  no  special  alteration  has  taken 
place  the  derivative  ingredients  of  the  one  can  frequently  be 
traced  to  the  other.  It  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to 
prove  from  lithological  considerations  alone  that  the  materials 
of  the  Philadelphia  gneisses  and  mica-schists  have  been  derived 
from  the  somewhat  similar  rocks  of  the  Laurentian  series,  inas- 
much as  the  former  have  evidently  suffered  to  such  an  extent 
from  metamorphism  as  to  leave  it  doubtful  whether  the  rocks  as 
we  now  see  them  are  in  any  way  like  what  they  were  when  origi- 
nally deposited.  But  in  the  formation  next  succeeding  the  Lauren- 
tian, the  Cambrian,  where  in  many  parts  no  metamorphic  action 
has  retroacted  upon  the  rock  structure,  distinct  evidences  of  deri- 
vation and  transference  of  material  are  strikingly  manifest. 

As  far  as  we  know  no  unequivocal  traces  of  organic  life  have 
ever  been  discovered  in  deposits  of  Laurentian  age;  that  life 
did  exist  at  this  early  period,  however,  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt,  seeing  how  abundant  are  the  animal  forms  that  suddenly 
appear  in  the  Cambrian  deposits.  This  conclusion  is  further 
sustained  by  the  presence  of  large  deposits  of  limestone  and 
graphite,  both  of  which  probably  represent  organic  structures." 


258  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

Upon  the  reorganization  of  the  Wagner  Eree  Institute  of 
Science,  in  1885,  Professor  Heilprin  received  from  it  a  call 
to  the  chair  of  geology  then  established,  and  three  years  later 
he  also  accepted  the  position  of  curator  of  its  museum.  Under 
the  joint  auspices  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  and 
the  Wagner  Institute  he  organized,  in  1886,  an  expedition  to 
the  wilds  of  Florida  —  a  region  concerning  which  there  existed 
little  information  scientifically  corroborated.  Thus  was  in- 
augurated the  series  of  explorations  connected  with  Angelo 
Heilprin's  name.  The  results  of  the  expedition,  as  laid  down 
in  the  volume  entitled  Explorations  on  the  West  Coast  of  Florida 
and  in  the  Olceecho'bee  'Wilderness,  were  the  determination,  based 
on  palseontological  evidence,  for  the  first  time  in  the  United 
States,  of  the  existence  of  a  marine  Pliocene  formation  and  the 
description  of  the  characteristic  fossils.  Professor  Heilprin 
termed  the  formation  the  Floridian  Stage  of  the  Pliocene,  a 
designation  which  has  been  permanently  retained  in  the  nomen- 
clature of  American  geology.  In  his  introduction  to  the  volume 
Dr.  Joseph  Leidy  said,  "  the  well-observed  facts  of  the  report 
must  greatly  modify  the  opinions  which  have  generally  been 
held  in  regard  to  the  geological  construction  of  the  Peninsula  of 
Elorida,  and  altogether  Professor  Heilprin's  researches  must 
be  considered  as  an  important  contribution  to  science." 

In  1887  Heilprin  published  The  Geographical  and  Geological 
'Distribution  of  Animals,  a  work  which,  as  one  of  the  Inter- 
national Scientific  Series,  took  its  place  as  a  standard  treatise 
on  the  subject,  both  in  this  country  and  in  England.  It  is 
the  product  of  stupendous  erudition,  and  has  been  linked  with 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace's  similar  work  (The  Geographical  Dis- 
tribution of  Animals). 

In  the  following  year  appeared  The  Geological  Evidences  of 
Evolution,  a  lucid  summary  of  the  collective  geological  and 
palseontological  evidences  in  support  of  organic  transmutation, 
based  on  an  evening  discourse  at  the  Philadelphia  Academy  of 
Natural  Sciences. 

The  Animal  Life  of  Our  Sea-Shore,  also  published  in  1887, 
is  a  popular  hand-book  on  the  local  fauna  of  Philadelphia  and 
the  animal  life  of  the  New  Jersey  coast.  It  has  passed  through 
several  editions. 


EXPLORATIONS    IN   MEXICO  259 

In  the  spring  of  the  same  year  Professor  Heilprin  took  several 
members  of  his  classes  to  the  Bermuda  Islands,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  studying  the  coral  reefs  and  examining  the  current 
theories  of  their  formation.  He  embodied  the  results  of  his 
investigations  in  a  volume  published  in  1889,  entitled  "  The 
Bermuda  Islands:  A  Contribution  to  the  Physical  History  and 
Geology  of  the  Somers  Archipelago,  with  an  Examination  of  the 
Structure  of  Coral  Reefs."  The  work  was  notable  for  the 
strong  arguments  advanced  in  favor  of  Darwin's  subsidence 
theory.  The  chapter  on  "  The  Coral  Reef  Problem  "  will  be 
found  elsewhere  in  this  volume. 

In  1890  Professor  Heilprin  published  an  exhaustive  geo- 
logical treatise,  his  Principles  of  Geology,  which  appeared  as 
the  seventh  volume  of  the  "  Iconographic  Encyclopaedia."  In 
this  volume  the  author  elucidated  his  subject  by  means  of  photo- 
graphic half-tone  reproductions  taken  directly  from  nature  — 
a  form  of  illustration  then  still  in  its  infancy.  Addressing 
himself  in  this  work  mainly  to  the  general  reader,  he  hoped,  by 
life-like  representations,  to  elicit  "  a  primary  interest  in  the 
subject  that  is  rarely  developed  by  a  diagram  or  even  by  a  dia- 
gram and  accompanying  text."  As  in  all  his  works  intended 
for  popular  use,  Professor  Heilprin  was  quick  to  seize  the  latest 
aids  in  attracting  the  attention  of  the  reader. 

EXPLOBATIONS    IN   MEXICO 

An  expedition  to  Mexico,  undertaken  in  the  same  year, 
yielded  important  results.  Professor  Heilprin  explored  the 
caves  and  ruins  of  the  Peninsula  of  Yucatan,  securing  valuable 
collections,  and  ascended  the  peaks  of  Orizaba,  Popocatepetl, 
Nevado  de  Toluca  and  Ixtaccihuatl,  determining  the  altitudes 
of  all.  He  also  cleared  up  hitherto  obscure  points  concerning  the 
geology  of  Yucatan  and  the  coral  reefs  of  the  western  part  of  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  studied  the  geology  of  the  great  central 
plateau  of  the  mainland.  These  observations  are  embodied  in 
the  Proceedings  of  the  Academy.  It  was  Professor  Heilprin's 
intention  to  speak  of  these  and  other  results  of  this  visit  to 
Mexico  and  of  a  subsequent  one  undertaken  in  1906,  in  a 
volume  addressed  to  general  readers,  but,  although  considerable 


260  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

material  for  such  a  book  was  found  among  his  papers,  the  work 
had  not  progressed  sufficiently  for  publication.  A  few  extracts 
from  his  notes  will,  however,  be  found  of  interest: 


TERMITE  NESTS 

"  We  first  came  upon  these  singular  habitations  in  the  open 
scrub  of  northern  Yucatan,  where  they  were  found  perched 
among  the  axils  of  low  trees,  some  eight  or  ten  feet  above  the 
ground.  Their  gray  color  and  '  papery '  appearance,  so  sug- 
gestive of  the  nests  of  the  social  Hymenoptera,  threw  out  that 
caution  which  is  ordinarily  exercised  in  approaching  the  habi- 
tations of  bees  and  wasps,  but  which  in  this  instance  was  wholly 
unnecessary.  The  puncture  of  the  walls  disclosed  a  busy  com- 
munity of  almost  infinite  life  —  restless  and  seemingly  ever 
active.  In  the  great  mangrove  forest  which  occupies  much  of 
the  northern  coast,  the  termite  nests  find  their  greatest  develop- 
ment, and  by  their  singular  presence  construct  a  picture  hardly 
to  be  matched  elsewhere.  Like  great  excrescences  of  the  trees 
themselves,  chocolate  brown  or  almost  black  in  color,  they  occupy 
positions  forty,  fifty  or  even  sixty  feet  above  the  eye  of  the 
spectator.  Individual  trees  may  have  as  many  as  three  or 
four  of  these  giant  nests  resting  in  their  axils,  while  others 
occupy  low  positions  on  the  strangled  trunks  and  cable-roots  of 
the  foresters,  overlooking  the  oceanic  waters  which  here  and 
there  find  their  way  into  the  solitude.  The  greater  number 
of  the  habitations  were  irregularly  balloon-shaped,  and  some  of 
them  measured  not  less  than  four  or  five  feet,  or  even  more, 
in  greatest  diameter.  On  all  the  tree-trunks  thus  adorned,  long 
and  more  or  less  tortuous  tunnels,  constructed  of  the  same 
salivary  paper,  and  measuring  perhaps  two-thirds  of  an  inch 
across,  could  be  followed  by  the  eye  meandering  upward  to 
their  terminations  in  the  great  nests,  to  which  they  form  the 
avenue  of  approach.  Wherever  tapped  they  disclosed  the  same 
busy  life  —  an  army  of  travelling  ants  —  as  did  the  interior  of 
the  nest  itself." 


AN   ASCENT    OF    ORIZABA  261 

AN  ASCENT  OF  OEIZABA 

"  At  noon  we  had  reached  an  elevation  of  about  16,000  feet. 
We  had  for  some  time  before  left  the  sand  for  a  ridge  of  lava 
boulders,  over  which  we  had  hoped  to  materially  lessen  the 
labor  of  climbing.  The  snow-field  now  descended  far  below  us 
on  one  side,  but  along  our  course  we  met  with  only  stray  cakes 
or  patches  of  snow  and  with  the  layer  of  ice  which  remained 
permanently  buried  beneath  a  capping  of  volcanic  debris.  I 
took  barometric  observations  at  intervals  of  about  every  half 
hour,  and  found  that  -we  were  making  300-400  feet  per  hour. 
At  this  rate  we  were  still  removed  several  hours  from  the 
summit. 

We  found  the  last  traces  of  terrestrial  animal  life  at  about 
15,000  feet,  where  we  picked  up  a  solitary  lizard  from  one 
of  the  sun-warmed  boulders.  There  were  no  insects  —  at  least 
we  failed  to  find  any  traces  of  their  existence  at  this  altitude. 
But  birds  were  still  observed  and  heard  above  us;  we  thought 
we  recognized  the  tit  and  the  chickadee,  and  possibly  a  species 
of  wren.  There  was  no  question  as  to  the  raven,  whose  '  caw ' 
was  heard  far  o'ertop  of  us,  or  the  sparrow-hawk.  At  about 
one  o'clock  we  reached  the  ice-cap  (elevation  of  15,500  feet), 
which  is  here  split  by  a  ridge  of  rock  and  boulders  entering 
far  into  its  limits. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  the  sensations  of  this  high-mountain 
climbing.  In  its  physical  expression  it  may  be  said  to  be  a 
continuous  alternation  between  muscular  ability  and  muscular 
inability.  Mentally  it  was  a  constant  contest  between  '  shall  I 
go  farther,  or  shall  I  desist  ? '  With  the  great  and  increasing 
strain  that  was  put  upon  us,  we  yet  felt  normal  the  moment  we 
sat  down  to  rest ;  we  caught  new  breath  and  everything  seemed 
welL  We  were  thus  never  in  a  position  to  definitely  know  our 
own  condition,  since  we  were  constantly  fluctuating  between 
'  ups '  and  *  downs.'  But  it  was  patent  that  after  every  rest 
our  ability  to  do  work  was  getting  less  and  less,  and  the  periods  of 
rest  were  following  one  another  in  a  disagreeably  rapid  succes- 
sion. Our  chances  for  success  were  becoming  steadily  less,  and 
we  had  only  just  entered  upon  the  snow-field. 

Up  till  now  we  had  not  passed  over  any  dangerous  places: 


262  ANGELO   HEILPRItf 

there  were  no  steep  precipices  to  climb,  nor  broad  crevices  to 
cross.  It  would  have  been  all  smooth  sailing  but  for  the  fatigue 
attending  muscular  exercise.  But  now  on  the  snow-field  extra 
caution  would  be  required,  and  we  had  but  little  of  that  mental 
strength  left  which  was  necessary  to  properly  guide  our  actions. 
The  snow-field,  or  more  correctly  ice-field,  was  of  inconsiderable 
development,  at  no  point  where  seen  by  us  attaining  a  greater 
thickness  than  about  5-7  feet.  Its  surface  was  everywhere  cut 
up  into  sharp  pinnacles  (seracs),  two  or  three  feet  in  height, 
which,  while  offering  safe  lodgment  to  the  feet,  rendered  prog- 
ress exceedingly  irksome.  There  was  no  soft  snow,  and  the 
feet  made  but  little  impression  on  the  crusty  surface  of  the  ice. 
I  found  the  rubbers  with  which  I  had  provided  myself  exceed- 
ingly useful,  but  for  downhill  work  they  were  not  as  serviceable 
as  the  cotton  swaths  which  the  guides  had  fastened  around  their 
sandaled  feet ;  they  were  soon  worn  through  by  the  sharp  edges 
of  the  ice,  and  before  my  return  to  the  camp  that  evening  there 
was  little  left  of  the  soles.  Still,  for  a  single  ascent  they  can 
be  used  with  advantage,  and  they  are  in  one  respect  preferable 
to  the  native  foot  swaths  —  they  are  less  clumsy." 

In  crossing  the  Porfirio  Diaz  Glacier  Professor  Heilprin  and 
his  guide  came  very  near  losing  their  lives.  They  slipped  and 
were  violently  thrown  on  their  backs.  He  writes : 

"  The  full  realization  of  what  in  apparent  certainty  awaited 
us  impelled  to  every  effort  to  break  our  swift  glissade.  We 
thrust  our  poles  as  best  we  could  into  the  crusted  ice,  bore  down 
with  both  heels  and  elbows,  but  apparently  to  no  purpose.  The 
steep  slope  of  the  glacier  and  the  swift  journey  prevented  us 
from  turning  on  our  sides,  and  on  our  backs  we  were  helpless. 
Below  us  yawned  the  great  chasm  which  we  were  trying  to  cir- 
cumvent, and  to  it  we  were  being  carried  with  what  might 
elsewhere  have  been  considered  refreshing  velocity.  No  escape 
seemed  possible.  A  few  thoughts  of  home  crowded  into  my 
mind,  but  there  was  no  historical  review  of  the  incidents  of  a 
lifetime,  such  as  Admiral  Beaufort  mentions  as  processioning 
in  the  vision  of  a  rapidly  drowning  man.  Down  we  swept  over 
the  first  hundred  feet,  and  then  over  the  second,  crossing  the 


A   1STAKKOW   ESCAPE  263 

line  of  steps  which  we  had  so  laboriously  cut  on  our  upward 
journey.  I  drew  a  heavy  breath  as  we  neared  the  impending 
wall  of  ice,  for  in  the  next  instant  I  expected  to  see  ourselves 
hurled  over  its  face  into  the  dreary  chasm  below.  But  it  was 
not  to  be.  There  was,  indeed,  little  between  us  and  eternity, 
but  yet  sufficient  to  permit  us  to  pull  our  quivering  frames  to- 
gether and  catch  one  more  leaf  of  life." 

Something,  presumably  a  cushion  of  softer  ice,  stopped  their 
descent  on  the  very  brink  of  the  precipice. 


Ill 

ARCTIC   EXPLORATIONS 

From  the  year  1891  dates  the  beginning  of  those  intimate 
relations  between  Angelo  Heilprin  and  Robert  E.  Peary  which 
so  largely  influenced  the  career  of  that  great  explorer.  No  one 
has  been  more  emphatic  in  acknowledging  his  indebtedness,  in 
the  early  stages  of  his  undertakings,  to  the  support  of  Angelo 
Heilprin  than  Peary  himself.  From  the  very  first  day  when 
Lieutenant  Peary  presented  himself  at  the  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences,  Heilprin  was  greatly  impressed  with  his  bearing  and 
his  evident  ability,  and  he  determined  to  further  in  every 
possible  way  Peary's  projects,  of  whose  entire  feasibility  he 
never  entertained  any  doubt.  "  The  Philadelphia  Academy," 
says  Peary  in  his  work  Northward  over  the  Great  Ice,  "  was 
the  first  institution  to  which  my  project  was  presented,  and  the 
first  to  endorse  and  commend  it,  which  it  did  in  warm  and 
unequivocal  terms.  As  an  institution,  however,  the  Academy 
never  appropriated  or  contributed  a  dollar  to  the  Expedition. 
•Members  of  the  Academy,  in  their  private  capacity,  did  con- 
tribute powerfully,  both  in  work  and  money,  towards  its  suc- 
cess. To  the  personal  interest,  friendship,  and  intense  energy 
and  push  of  Professor  Angelo  Heilprin,  Curator  of  the  Acad- 
emy, was  I  indebted,  more  than  to  any  other  one  person,  not 
only  for  the  official  action  of  the  Academy,  but  for  the  un- 
official interest  and  efforts  of  its  members,  which  assured  the 
balance  of  the  funds  necessary  to  make  the  affair  a  success." 

Professor  Heilprin  accompanied  Lieutenant  Peary's  North 
Greenland  expedition,  which  sailed  from  Brooklyn,  June  6, 
1891,  in  the  steamer  Kite.  Mr.  Heilprin  was  in  command  of 
the  West  Greenland  expedition,  which  had  set  out  to  do  its 
own  distinctive  work.  Associated  with  him  were  Professor 


ARCTIC   EXPLORATIONS  265 

Benjamin  Sharp,  zoologist  in  charge;  Proefssor  J.  F.  Holt, 
zoologist ;  Dr.  William  E.  Hughes,  ornithologist ;  Mr.  Levi  W. 
Mengel,  entomologist;  Dr.  William  H.  Burk,  botanist;  Mr. 
Alexander  C.  Kenealy,  a  reporter  for  the  New  York  Herald; 
Dr.  Robert  N".  Keely,  jr.,  surgeon;  and  Mr.  Frazer  Ashhurst. 

In  the  following  year  Professor  Heilprin  led  the  Peary 
Relief  Expedition  to  Greenland.  With  him  were  Henry  G. 
Bryant,  the  successful  explorer  of  the  Grand  Falls  of  Labrador, 
second  in  command ;  Dr.  Jackson  M.  Mills,  surgeon ;  William 
E.  Meehan,  botanist;  Charles  E.  Hite,  zoological  preparator; 
Samuel  J.  Entrikin;  Frank  W.  Stokes,  artist;  and  Albert 
White  Vorse.  The  Kite  was  again  chartered  as  the  vessel  of 
the  expedition. 

The  story  of  the  meeting  with  Peary  on  the  ice  cap,  one  of 
the  most  dramatic  chapters  in  the  history  of  Polar  exploration, 
is  thus  told  by  Professor  Heilprin  in  his  volume  on  The  Arctic 
Problem  and  Narrative  of  the  Peary  Relief  Expedition,  pub- 
lished in  1893 : 

"  On  the  day  following  our  arrival  at  the  head  of  the  bay, 
a  reconnaissance  of  the  inland  ice,  with  a  view  to  locating  signal 
posts  to  the  returning  explorers,  was  made  by  the  members  of 
the  expedition.  A  tedious  half-hour's  march  over  boggy  and 
bouldery  talus  brought  us  to  the  base  of  the  cliffs,  at  an  ele- 
vation of  three  hundred  and  fifty  to  four  hundred  feet,  where 
the  true  ascent  was  to  begin.  The  line  of  march  is  up  a  pre- 
cipitous water-channel,  everywhere  encompassed  by  boulders, 
on  which,  despite  its  steepness,  progress  is  rapid.  The  virtual 
crest  is  reached  about  six  hundred  and  fifty  feet  higher,  and 
then  the  gradual  uprise  of  the  stream-valley  begins.  Endless 
rocks,  rounded  and  angular  —  the  accumulation  of  former 
ground  and  lateral  moraines  —  spread  out  as  a  vast  wilderness, 
rising  to  the  ice-cap  in  superimposed  benches  or  terraces.  At 
an  elevation  slightly  exceeding  eighteen  hundred  feet  we  reached 
the  first  tongue  of  the  ice.  Rounding  a  few  outlying  '  nuna- 
taks  '  —  uncovered  hills  of  rock  and  boulders  —  we  bear  east 
of  northeast,  heading  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  direction  from 
which,  so  far  as  the  lay  of  the  land  would  permit  us  to  deter- 
mine, the  return  would  most  likely  be  made.  The  ice-cap  swells 


266  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

up  higher  and  higher  in  gentle  rolls  ahead  of  us,  and  with! 
every  advance  to  a  colder  zone  it  would  seem  that  the  walking, 
or  rather  wading,  becomes  more  and  more  difficult.  One  by 
one  we  plunge  through  the  yielding  mass,  gasping  for  breath, 
and  frequently  only  with  difficulty  extricating  ourselves.  The 
hard  crust  of  winter  had  completely  disappeared,  and  not  even 
the  comparatively  cool  sun  of  midnight  was  sufficient  to  bring 
about  a  degree  of  compactness  adequate  to  sustain  the  weight 
of  the  human  body.  At  times  almost  every  step  buried  the 
members  of  the  party  up  to  the  knee  or  waist,  and  occasionally 
even  a  plunge  to  the  armpits  was  indulged  in  by  the  less  fortu- 
nate, to  whom  perhaps  a  superfluity  of  avoirdupois  was  now 
for  the  first  time  brought  home  as  a  lesson  of  regret.  We  have 
attained  an  elevation  of  2,200  feet ;  at  4  p.  M.  the  barometer 
registers  2,800  feet.  The  landscape  of  McCormick  Bay  has 
faded  entirely  out  of  sight;  ahead  of  us  is  the  grand  and 
melancholy  snow  waste  of  the  interior  of  Greenland.  No 
grander  representation  of  nature's  quiet  mood  could  be  had 
than  this  picture  of  the  endless  sea  of  ice  —  a  picture  of  lonely 
desolation  not  matched  in  any  other  part  of  the  earth's  surface. 
A  series  of  gentle  rises  carries  the  eye  far  into  the  interior, 
until  in  the  dim  distance,  possibly  three-quarters  of  a  mile  or 
a  full  mile  above  sea-level,  it  no  longer  distinguishes  between 
the  chalky  sky  and  the  gray-white  mantle  which  locks  in  with 
it.  No  lofty  mountain-peak  rises  out  of  the  general  surface, 
and  but  few  deep  valleys  or  gorges  bight  into  it;  but  roll 
follows  roll  in  gentle  sequence,  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  annihi- 
late all  conceptions  of  space  and  distance.  This  is  the  aspect 
of  the  great  '  ice-blink.'  It  is  not  the  picture  of  a  wild  and 
tempestuous  nature,  forbidding  in  all  its  details,  but  of  a 
peaceful  and  long-continued  slumber. 

At  5.45  P.  M.,  when  we  took  a  first  luncheon,  the  thermometer 
registered  42°  F. ;  the  atmosphere  was  quiet  and  clear  as  a 
bell,  although  below  us,  westward  to  the  islands  guarding  the 
entrance  to  Murchison  Sound,  and  eastward  to  a  blue  corner 
of  Inglefield  Gulf,  the  landscape  was  deeply  veiled  in  mist. 
Shortly  after  nine  o'clock  we  had  reached  an  elevation  of 
3,300  feet,  and  there,  at  a  distance  of  about  eight  miles  from 
the  border  of  the  ice-cap,  we  planted  our  first  staff  —  a  lash  of 


AKCTIC   EXPLOKATIONS  267 

two  poles,  rising  about  twelve  feet  and  surmounted  by  cross- 
pieces  and  a  red  handkerchief.  One  of  the  cross-pieces  read 
as  follows :  "  To  head  of  McCormick  Bay  —  Kite  in  port  — 
August  5,  1892." 

A  position  for  a  second  staff  was  selected  on  an  ice-dome 
about  two  and  a  half  miles  from  the  present  one,  probably  a 
few  hundred  feet  higher,  and  commanding  a  seemingly  unin- 
terrupted view  to  all  points  of  the  compass.  Solicitous  over 
the  condition  of  the  feet  of  some  of  my  associates,  I  ordered 
a  division  of  the  party,  with  a  view  of  sparing  unnecessary 
fatigue  and  the  discomfort  which  further  precipitation  into  soft 
snow  entailed.  Mr.  Bryant,  in  command  of  an  advanced  sec- 
tion, was  entrusted  with  the  placing  of  the  second  staff,  while 
the  remaining  members  of  the  party  were  to  effect  a  slow 
retreat,  and  await  on  dry  ground  the  return  of  the  entire  ex- 
pedition. Scarcely  had  the  separation  been  arranged  before 
a  shout  burst  upon  the  approaching  midnight  hour  which  made 
everybody's  heart  throb  to  its  fullest.  Far  off  to  the  north- 
eastward, over  precisely  the  spot  that  had  been  selected  for  the 
placing  of  the  second  staff,  Entrikin's  clear  vision  had  detected 
a  black  speck  that  was  foreign  to  the  Greenland  ice.  There 
was  no  need  to  conjecture  what  it  meant:  '  It  is  a  man;  it  is 
moving,'  broke  out  almost  simultaneously  from  several  lips, 
and  it  was  immediately  realized  that  the  explorers  of  whom  we 
were  in  quest  were  returning  victoriously  homeward.  An  in- 
stant later  a  second  speck  joined  the  first,  and  then  a  long  black 
object,  easily  resolved  by  my  field-glass  into  a  sledge  with  dogs 
in  harness,  completed  the  strange  vision  of  life  upon  the  Green- 
land ice.  Cheers  and  hurrahs  followed  in  rapid  succession  — 
the  first  that  had  ever  been  given  in  a  solitude  whose  silence, 
before  that  memorable  summer,  had  never  been  broken  by  the 
voice  of  man. 

The  distance  was  as  yet  too  great  for  the  sound  to  be  con- 
veyed to  the  approaching  wanderers,  but  the  relief  party  had 
already  been  detected,  and  their  friends  hastened  to  extend  to 
them  a  hearty  welcome.  Like  a  veritable  giant,  clad  in  a  suit 
of  deer  and  dog-skin,  and  gracefully  poised  on  Canadian  snow- 
shoes,  the  conqueror  from  the  far  north  plunged  down  the 
mountain-slope.  Behind  him  followed  his  faithful  companion, 


268  ANGELO   HEILPRDT 

young  Astrup,  barely  more  than  a  lad,  yet  a  tower  of  strength 
and  endurance;  he  was  true  to  the  traditions  of  his  race 
and  of  his  earlier  conquests  in  the  use  of  the  Norwegian  snow- 
skate  or  '  ski.'  With  him  were  the  five  surviving  Eskimo 
dogs,  seemingly  as  healthy  and  powerful  as  on  the  day  of  their 
departure. 

In  less  than  an  hour  after  Lieutenant  Peary  was  first  sighted, 
and  still  before  the  passage  of  the  midnight  hour  of  that  memo- 
rable August  5th,  culminated  that  incident  on  the  inland  ice 
which  was  the  event  of  a  lifetime.  Words  cannot  describe  the 
sensations  of  the  moment  which  bore  the  joy  of  the  first 
salutation.  Mr.  Peary  extended  a  warm  welcome  to  each  mem- 
ber of  my  party,  and  received  in  return  hearty  congratulations 
upon  the  successful  termination  of  his  journey.  Neither  of  the 
travellers  looked  the  worse  for  their  three  months'  toil  in  the 
interior,  and  both,  with  characteristic  modesty,  disclaimed  hav- 
ing overcome  more  than  ordinary  hardships.  Fatigue  seemed 
to  be  entirely  out  of  the  question,  and  both  Mr,  Peary  and 
Mr.  Astrup  bore  the  appearance  of  being  as  fresh  and  vigorous 
as  though  they  had  but  just  entered  upon  their  great  journey. 

After  a  brief  recital  of  personal  experiences,  and  the  inter- 
change of  American  and  Greenland  news,  the  members  of  the 
combined  expedition  turned  seaward,  and  thus  terminated  a 
most  dramatic  incident.  A  more  direct  meeting  than  this  one 
on  the  bleak  wilderness  of  Greenland's  ice-cap  could  not  have 
been  had,  even  with  all  the  possibilities  of  prearrangement." 


IY 
A   JOURNEY   TO   ALASKA 

In  1896  Professor  Heilprin  attended  the  Mining  and  Geo- 
logical Congress  at  Budapest,  as  delegate  of  the  Academy,  and 
thence  made  a  journey  to  the  Atlas  Mountains  of  Algeria  and 
Morocco.  As  a  result  of  his  geological  investigations,  he  estab- 
lished the  fact  of  the  non-existence  of  any  trace  of  glacial 
phenomena  in  these  regions.  In  the  same  year  appeared  his 
text-book  on  The  Earth  and  its  Story,  which  attained  wide 
popularity  in  high-schools  and  colleges. 

He  next  turned  his  attention  to  Alaska,  which  he  visited  in 
the  summer  of  1898,  embodying  his  experiences  in  a  volume 
entitled  "Alaska  and  the  Klondike:  A  Journey  to  the  New 
Eldorado,  with  Hints  to  the  Traveller  and  Observations  on  the 
Physical  History  and  Geology  of  the  Gold  Regions,  the  Con- 
dition of  and  Methods  of  Working  the  Klondike  Placers,  and 
the  Laws  Governing  and  Regulating  Mining  in  the  Northwest 
Territory  of  Canada."  While  thus  mainly  intended  as  a  prac- 
tical hand-book,  the  volume  possesses  considerable  scientific 
interest.  The  chapter  on  "  Physical  History  and  Geology  "  con- 
tains the  following  striking  observations : 

"  Through  virtually  the  entire  Klondike  tract  and  far  beyond 
it  on  all  sides  there  are  evidences  of  high  water  flows.  No  more 
perfect  presentation  of  high-level  terraces  can  be  had  than  that 
which  defines  the  first  line  of  heights,  of  perhaps  one  hundred 
and  fifty  to  two  hundred  feet,  which  so  beautifully  impress 
the  landscape  of  the  Yukon  about  Dawson.  The  observer,  from 
a  still  loftier  elevation,  notes  these  flat-topped  banks,  having  the 
regularity  of  railroad  constructions,  following  the  course  of 
the  river  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  here  perhaps  interrupted 
by  a  too  steeply  washed  buttress,  elsewhere  washed  to  low  level 
by  some  stream  which  has  taken  a  transverse  direction.  A  some- 


270  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

what  higher  line  of  benches  curves  around  the  still  higher  points 
of  eminence,  and  defines  the  course  of  water  across  country  — 
such,  at  least,  it  is  to-day.  And  all  the  way  to  the  top,  scat- 
tered evidences  of  the  recent  presence  of  water  can  still  be 
found.  I  met  with  rolled  or  water-worn  pebbles  so  near  to 
the  top  (the  actual  summit  and  not  the  position  of  the  signal 
flag)  of  the  high  peak  overlooking  Dawson  that  it  may  safely 
be  assumed  that  they  also  occur  on  the  very  apex  (about  eleven 
hundred  feet  above  the  present  level  of  the  Yukon),  a  con- 
clusion which  is  more  than  strengthened  by  the  finding  of 
pebbles  at  even  a  greater  elevation  on  the  Erench- Adams  Creek 
knob.  While  thus  presenting  the  evidence  of  high  water  levels, 
I  am  far  from  convinced  that  this  evidence  points  exclusively 
to  river  flows.  Much  more  does  it  appear  that,  in  one  part 
of  its  history  at  least,  we  are  dealing  with  the  evidences  of  the 
past  existence  of  large  lakelike  bodies  of  water,  perhaps  even 
of  a  vast  inland  sea.  The  contours  of  the  country  in  a  sort  of 
ill-defined  way  suggest  this  interpretation  —  an  interpretation 
that  is  not,  however,  without  evidence  to  support  it,  and  which 
seems  also  to  have  been  entertained  before  me  by  McConnell 
and  by  Israel  Eussell.  The  latter  investigator  has,  indeed, 
given  the  name  of  Lake  Yukon  to  a  former  extensive  body  of 
water,  of  which  the  existing  Lakes  Lebarge,  Marsh,  Tagish, 
and  Bennett,  with  the  connecting  Yukon,  are  only  dissociated 
parts.  This  lake  is  assumed  to  have  been  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  in  length,  with  a  surface  elevated  between  twenty- 
five  hundred  and  twenty-seven  hundred  feet  above  the  sea. 

CONTOURS  OP  THE  COUNTRY 

First  in  the  line  of  evidence  may  perhaps  be  taken  the  uni- 
versality of  wash  gravel  and  of  terrace  debris  and  the  great 
heights  which  they  occupy.  While  I  have  not  myself  observed 
such  evidences  of  water  action  on  the  very  summit  of  the  Dome, 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  they  do  or  at  least  did  exist. 
Most  of  this  summit,  in  its  narrowed  form  and  rapidly  descend- 
ing slopes,  has  been,  if  one  may  use  the  expression,  more  than 
washed  off,  and  could  hardly  be  expected  to  retain  for  any 
great  length  of  time  accumulations  of  loose  fragmental  material. 
But  at  least  its  far-off  continuation  near  the  source  (right 


A   JOURNEY   TO  ALASKA  271 

fork)  of  Eldorado  Creek  bears  some  of  it  on  its  shoulder,  and 
I  have  also  seen  it  in  an  excavation  on  the  loftily  located  Claim 
71  of  that  stream.  Nearly  abreast  of  the  international  boun- 
dary, the  one  hundred  and  forty-first  meridian  of  west  longi- 
tude (Greenwich),  McConnell  and  Russell  noted  the  terrace 
line  of  the  Yukon  River  as  high  up  as  seven  hundred  and  thirty 
feet,  which  is  still  about  four  hundred  feet  below  the  point 
where  I  obtained  wash  gravel  on  the  peak  back  of  Dawson; 
but  Dr.  George  Dawson  found  the  terraces  on  Dease  Lake  to 
rise  to  thirty-six  hundred  and  sixty  feet,  and  elsewhere  he  calls 
attention  to  having  come  across  water-rolled  gravel  at  an  eleva- 
tion of  forty-three  hundred  feet,  which  would  probably  exceed 
by  about  six  hundred  feet  the  culminating  point  of  Dome  Moun- 
tain. Such  high  water  could,  with  the  existing  configuration 
of  the  land  surface,  hardly  define  any  other  feature  than  that 
of  a  large  interior  sea  or  of  a  series  of  lake  basins ;  and  while 
it  may  be  argued  that  there  has  been  sufficient  degradation  of 
the  land  surface  since  the  period  of  the  height  of  water  to 
permit  us  to  reconstruct  a  contour  that  would  be  in  harmony 
with  altered  and  reduced  river  courses,  and  relieve  us  from  the 
necessity  of  invoking  the  assistance  of  lacustrine  bodies  in  a 
solution  of  the  problem,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  likely  that 
this  has  been  the  case.  The  physiognomy  of  the  upper  Yukon 
valley  supports  this  contention,  and  even  to-day  the  river  has 
not  yet  fully  escaped  from  a  lacustrine  condition  which  is 
merely  fragmental  of  a  previous  state. 

DEPOSITS  OF  VOLCANIC  ASH 

On  one  point  bearing  upon  the  succession  of  events  in  the 
upper  Yukon  valley,  and  which  has  its  connection  with  the 
history  of  the  Klondike  region,  my  conclusions  differ  somewhat 
from  those  that  have  been  expressed  by  Dawson.  This  pertains 
to  the  deposit  of  volcanic  ash  which  is  so  marked  a  feature  of 
the  accumulations  of  the  river's  banks.  For  nearly  three  hun- 
dred miles  by  the  course  of  the  river  a  stratum  of  pumiceous 
ash,  ordinarily  not  more  than  four  or  six  inches  in  thickness, 
constitutes  almost  without  break  the  top  layer  but  one  of  the 
banks  on  either  side,  and  that  which  is  above  it  is  generally  only 
the  insignificant  soil  or  subsoil  which  immediately  supports  the 


272  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

vegetation.  So  persistent  is  this  ash  layer,  and  so  uniformly 
does  it  hold  to  an  even  thickness  and  to  its  exact  position  be- 
neath the  surface,  that  without  further  examination  one  would 
be  tempted  to  believe  from  a  little  distance  that  it  was  merely 
the  ordinary  subsoil  layer  from  which  the  color  had  been 
leached  out  by  vegetable  growths.  Here  and  there,  where  there 
have  been  local  disturbances  or  water  washings  have  produced 
concentration,  it  may  have  acquired  a  development  of  a  few  feet, 
and  occasionally  it  has  accommodated  itself  to  flexures  or  sag- 
gings  of  the  deposits  which  it  normally  caps  as  a  horizontal 
zone.  Dr.  Dawson,  in  commenting  upon  its  occurrence,  cor- 
rectly assumes  that  it  represents  one  continuous  volcanic  erup- 
tion, the  date  of  which  might  fall  well  within  a  period  of  a 
few  hundred  years,  and  he  speculates  as  to  its  being  possibly 
associated  with  an  outbreak  from  Mount  Wrangell  or  some 
active  cone  which  is  represented  by  the  Indians  to  exist  in 
the  region  of  the  upper  White  River.  Beyond  this,  from  the 
normality  of  its  position,  and  the  assumed  fact  that  no  fluviatile 
or  aqueous  deposits  have  been  found  overlying  it,  the  same 
observer  argues  that  the  outbreak  must  have  taken  place  subse- 
quent to  the  formation  of  the  present  river  courses  and  their 
valleys,  a  conclusion  in  which  I  do  not  see  my  way  to  concur. 
The  only  satisfactory  interpretation  of  this  vast  uniformly 
placed  and  uniformly  layered  deposit  of  ash  is  to  me  that 
which  assumes  a  deposition  in  a  widely  extended  lake  basin, 
or  in  shallow  lagoon  waters  which  already  in  part  occupied  the 
present  valley  surfaces.  In  such  waters  precipitation  from 
long-continued  suspension  would  proceed  gradually  and  evenly, 
to  the  end  of  shaping  a  deposit  of  nearly  uniform  development 
and  of  vast  extent.  Such  depositions  we  find  in  the  valleys 
lying  north  of  the  City  of  Mexico  (Zumpango,  Tequixquiac) 
and  in  the  lacustrine  area  of  Anahuac,  also  in  the  famous 
fossiliferous  basin  of  Florissant,  in  Colorado.  With  the  subse- 
quent formation  or  reformation  of  the  river's  course  we  should 
have  this  deposit  cut  through,  with  the  result  of  presenting  the 
even  layer  which  is  so  persistent  in  its  following.  This  method 
would  also  account  for  the  anomalous  position  in  which  we  find 
the  ash  deposits;  while  still  holding  the  same  relation  to  the 
top  surface,  it  occasionally  rises  far  above  what  might  be  as- 


A   JOURNEY   TO   ALASKA  273 

sumed  to  be  its  normal  height  or  level  above  the  water's  surface 
—  from  four  to  ten  feet  —  a  condition  that  would  hardly  be  in 
consonance  with  the  assumption  that  the  ash  was  deposited  after 
the  actual  river  channels  had  been  cut.  But  other  and  more 
direct  proof  of  aqueous  occupation  after  the  laying  of  the  ash 
is  had  in  the  fact  that  in  one  place  at  least,  and  doubtless  many 
more  such  will  be  found  on  closer  investigation,  lacustrine  or 
fluviatile  shells  (subfossils)  occur  in  the  layer  overlying  the 
ash.  A  locality  of  this  kind  is  found  on  the  right  bank  not 
many  miles  above  the  Five  Finger  Rapids.  Here,  at  a  height 
of  not  more  than  four  feet  above  the  river,  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  determining  species  of  Limnea  and  Physa,  associated  singu- 
larly enough  with  Helix,  in  the  layers  immediately  above  and 
below  the  ash  bed,  and  in  both  horizons  the  species  were  identical. 
This  isolated  fact  speaks  volumes  for  itself.  Had  this  been  the 
region  of  Helena,  Ark.,  I  should  have  been  prompted  to  class 
the  bed  with  a  portion  of  the  Mississippi  loess.  What  interested 
me  further  in  this  connection  was  the  fact  that  up  to  this  time 
I  had  failed  to  bring  to  light  one  solitary  mollusc  from  the 
upper  Yukon,  and  to  all  inquiries  regarding  the  existence  of 
shellfish  in  this  northern  water  invariably  a  negative  reply  was 
received.  Only  on  that  day  did  I  again  obtain  success  in  my 
malacological  effort,  the  almost  icy  waters  rewarding  my  search 
with  a  single  specimen  —  unfortunately  subsequently  lost  —  of 
a  Byihinella,  or  some  closely  related  type,  so  that  even  to-day 
my  knowledge  does  not  permit  me  to  state  if  the  subfossil 
species  of  the  banks  have  their  living  representatives,  either 
specific  or  generic,  in  the  almost  wholly  noncalcareous  waters  of 
the  existing  river.  The  question  from  more  points  than  one  is 
interesting,  and  deserves  more  than  passing  attention.  It  may 
be  remarked  in  this  place  that  the  only  other  fluviatile  inverte- 
brate which  I  found  in  these  waters  was  a  white  siliceous  coat- 
ing sponge,  whose  statoblasts  were  well  visible  to  the  naked  eye. 
Unfortunately,  the  loss  of  my  specimens  has  prevented  deter- 
mination, a  circumstance  the  more  to  be  deplored  as  these  fresh- 
water sponges  are  the  most  northern  in  habit  known  to  the 
zoologists.1 

1  Professor  Russell,  in  discussing  the  flood-plain  deposits  of  the  Yukon 
about  the  mouth  of  the  Porcupine  River,  says  that  "  fresh-water  sheila  were 


274  ANGELO   HEILPKIK 


FURTHER  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  YUKON  TRACT 

There  is  evidence  of  another  kind  pointing  to  a  comparative 
newness  of  much  of  the  present  course  of  the  Yukon.  The 
feature  has  been  noticed  alike  by  nongeographers  and  geog- 
raphers, and  by  geologists  as  well,  that  the  arm  which  carries 
the  greatest  volume  of  water  does  not  everywhere  occupy  the 
main  orographic  valley.  Thus,  as  Dawson  has  well  pointed  out, 
in  coming  up  the  stream  the  valley  of  the  Big  Salmon  appears 
to  be  more  nearly  the  continuation  of  the  main  valley  below 
than  that  which  still  (and  properly)  continues  to  be  desig- 
nated the  Lewes  (Yukon)  above;  and  this  is  still  more  mark- 
edly the  case  with  the  Hootalinqua  (Teslin-too  or  dewberry 
River)  at  the  confluence  with  the  Thirty  Mile.  Even  the  valley 
of  the  Pelly  at  its  junction  with  the  Yukon,  near  Fort  Selkirk, 
would  perhaps  to  most  persons  suggest  itself  as  the  main  chan- 
nel of  erosion.  There  is  no  hardship  to  geological  facts  in  in- 
voking the  aid  of  great  displacements  to  account  for  a  condition 
which  to  my  mind  is  well  impressed  upon  the  landscape ;  for, 
even  without  the  proper  or  fully  satisfactory  evidence  in  hand 
to  support  the  view,  I  fully  believe  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
upper  Yukon  tract  only  recently  emerged  from  a  lacustrine  con- 
dition. !N^or  is  it  to  me  by  any  means  certain  that  this  emer- 
gence or  final  reconstruction  of  the  land  surface  into  valley 
tracts  need  be  more  than  a  few  hundred  years  old,  or  neces- 
sarily older  than  the  deposition  of  the  volcanic  ash,  which  is 
hypothetically  carried  back  by  Dawson  to  a  possible  five  hun- 
dred years  or  so.  If  it  should  be  objected  that  we  know  of 
no  such  rapid  change  in  the  configuration  of  a  land  surface 
brought  about  by  aqueous  agencies,  it  might  be  answered  that 
the  mechanics  of  erosion  in  a  pre-eminently  drift-covered  re- 
gion, under  subarctic  conditions  and  with  the  influence  of  a  most 
powerful  and  energetic  stream  near  by,  have  neither  been 
studied  nor  observed. 

Let  us  examine  the  possibilities  of  the  case.  As  an  initiatory 
premise  it  might  be  assumed,  without  much  chance  of  either 

frequently  observed  in  the  finer  deposits."    Unfortunately,  no  statement  is 
made  of  tlie  types  which  they  represent. 


A   JOUKKEY   TO   ALASKA  275 

affirmation  or  denial,  that  the  degradation  of  the  land  surface 
in  the  immediate  valleys  of  the  main  streams  is  or  has  been 
in  the  past  taking  place  at  the  rate  of  half  a  line  per  day;  so 
far  as  the  eye  and  ordinary  instruments  of  measurement  are 
concerned  this  is  a  quite  inappreciable  amount,  and  I  see  no 
reason  why  it  may  not  be  assumed  as  the  working  power  of  the 
Yukon.  With  this  rate  of  erosion  a  valley  trough  or  contour 
of  about  a  foot  and  a  third  might  be  formed  in  the  period  of 
a  single  year,  or  of  nearly  seven  hundred  feet  in  five  hundred 
years,  and  if  we  lessen  the  daily  erosion  to  one  quarter  of  the 
amount  stated  —  i.  e.,  to  an  eighth  of  a  line  —  we  should  still 
have  in  this  same  period  of  five  hundred  years,  speaking  broadly, 
a  trough  of  about  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  feet  depth,  quite 
sufficient  to  have  brought  about  most  marked  changes  in  the 
aspect  of  a  drift-covered  lagoon  region,  and  perhaps  ample  to 
account  for  those  physiognomic  peculiarities  which  have  been 
discovered.  I  am  fully  impressed  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
distance  which  separates  the  amount  of  erosion  which  I  have 
assumed  —  an  eighth  of  a  line  daily  —  from  the  "  one  foot 
in  six  thousand  years,"  which  has  been  preached  categorically 
from  lectern  and  text-book  for  the  better  part  of  a  quarter  of 
a  century  and  threatens  to  make  dogma  for  still  another  period 
of  equal  length;  but  the  conditions  here  are  entirely  different 
from  those  of  average  continental  denudation  —  in  fact,  have 
as  nearly  nothing  in  common  as  they  can  have.  My  observations 
in  the  tropics  and  subtropics  have  most  impressively  taught  me 
the  lesson  of  rapid  changes,  and  with  the  conditions  that  are 
and  have  been  associated  with  the  Yukon,  I  am  prepared  for 
the  lesson  of  equal  change  in  the  north.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  are  we  not  taught  of  a  removal  in  the  west  central  United 
States  of  some  twelve  thousand  feet  of  rock  strata  in  a  period 
not  impossibly  considerably  less  than  two  hundred  thousand 
years  ?  The  one  foot  in  sixteen  years  has  here  likewise  noth- 
ing in  common  with  the  '  prevailing '  rate  of  continental 
destruction. 

While  stalled  on  a  bar  on  the  Yukon  Eiver,  about  two  miles 
above  Fort  Selkirk,  I  was  much  impressed  with  the  mechanical 
work  of  the  stream.  The  gravel  and  pebbles  were  being  hur- 
ried along  rapidly  under  the  lash  of  a  five  to  six  mile  current, 


276  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

and  their  groans  were  audible  frequently  when  they  themselves 
were  invisible.  Every  few  minutes  our  steamer  would  swerve 
from  her  seemingly  fixed  position  by  the  undercutting  of  the 
bar,  and  perhaps  it  would  be  not  far  from  the  truth  in  saying 
that  we  should  be  to-day  in  very  nearly  the  same  position  that 
we  were  in  then  had  it  not  been  for  this  undermining  action  of 
the  stream.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  Yukon  has  a  cur- 
rent ranging  up  to  seven  miles,  or  to  eight,  as  some  of  the  navi- 
gators say,  and  that  in  certain  months  it  is  swiftly  ice-bound, 
both  on  top  and  at  the  bottom,  and  heavily  charged  with  boulders, 
and  one  may  well  realize  the  work  of  which  it  is  capable.  That 
with  which  I  have  debited  it  is  purely  hypothetical  or  con- 
jectural, but  it  may  serve  a  purpose  in  the  elucidation  of  the 
main  problem." 


THE   BAKING   ASCENT    OF   MONT    PELEE 

The  catastrophes  of  Martinique,  in  1902,  were  to  give  Angelo 
Heilprin  world-wide  celebrity  as  an  intrepid  observer  of  the 
death-dealing  phenomena  on  the  spot.  He  left  for  the  island  two 
weeks  after  the  cataclysm  of  May  8,  and  ascended  Mont  Pelee 
on  June  1.  His  own  account  of  the  undertaking,  as  described 
in  his  volume  on  Mont  Pelee  and  the  Tragedy  of  Martinique, 
gives  but  a  hint  of  the  dangers  he  encountered : 

"  We  left  our  animals  in  charge  of  one  of  the  Martinique  boys 
at  an  elevation  of  about  two  thousand  two  hundred  feet,  and 
slowly  pushed  on  to  the  summit.  The  ascent  was  an  easy  one, 
even  if  fatiguing  at  times  to  the  heart  and  lungs,  and  pre- 
sented nothing  more  difficult  than  the  long  slopes  of  some  of 
our  own  Appalachian  peaks.  The  course  was  direct,  without 
zigzags  of  any  kind;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  particular 
conditions  which  existed  at  the  summit,  the  '  climb '  would 
have  been  without  color-incident  of  any  kind.  As  it  was,  we 
knew  only  inferentially  what  was  taking  place  at  the  top,  and 
were  even  in  doubt  as  to  whether  the  summit  could  be  reached 
at  all.  Up  to  this  time  sky  and  weather  had  been  most  favor- 
able, but  the  battered  volcano  had  begun  to  gather  to  its  crown 
the  island's  mists,  and  its  own  clouds  hung  ominously  over  the 
summit.  In  a  short  half -hour  the  parting-line  between  the  land 
and  sky  had  been  blotted  out,  and  the  balance  of  our  ascent 
was  made  in  doudland.  A  discomforting  rain  fell  upon  us,  and 
when  we  finally  reached  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  shortly 
before  eleven  o'clock,  the  weather  was  decidedly  nasty.  My 
aneroid  indicated  an  elevation  of  three  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  seventy-five  feet.  We  were  standing  on  what  had  been 
assumed  to  be  the  rim  of  the  old  crater,  on  the  rim  of  the  basin 
that  contained  the  Lac  des  Palmistes.  Between  shifts  in  the 


278  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

clouds  we  obtained  spectral  glimpses  of  the  opposing  mornes  or 
pitons,  their  ragged  lines  rising  perhaps  two  hundred  feet 
higher,  and  of  the  flat  basin  that  stretched  off  to  their  bases. 
But  of  the  lake  there  was  nothing.  So  much  of  the  basin  as 
we  could  see  was  absolutely  dry,  its  floor  brought  up  to  a 
nearly  uniform  level  through  the  fragmental  discharges  from 
the  volcano.  At  the  point  where  we  reached  it  there  was  a 
clearly  marked  border  rising  two  to  three  feet  above  the  floor. 

It  was  evident  at  a  glance  that  the  old  '  crater/  contrary  to 
general  belief  and  scientific  report,  had  not  been  blown  out. 
It  remained  where  picnic  parties,  seeking  its  beautiful  waters, 
annually  found  it  to  be,  where  the  blue  lobelia  adorned  its 
banks,  and  where  dwarf  palms,  succeeding  to  luxuriant  forest, 
told  the  land  of  the  tropical  sun.  To-day  not  a  trace  of  vege- 
table growth  remained,  not  even  a  lichen  found  attachment  on 
the  rough-surfaced  rocks  that  broke  out  from  the  scoriated  floor. 
This,  at  least,  was  what  my  observation  told  me.  We  sought  in 
vain  the  position  of  the  vent  whence  issued  the  miles  of  steam 
and  ash  that  formed  the  spectacle  of  the  morning,  of  the  even- 
ing before,  and  of  every  day  since  the  eruption  of  May  2. 
It  should  have  been  near  to  us,  but  where  was  it?  We  could 
clearly  hear  the  rumbling  in  its  interior,  the  grondement  of 
continuing  work,  but  the  eye  failed  to  penetrate  the  sea  of 
clouds  that  enveloped  us,  and  made  our  field  of  search  neces- 
sarily limited.  Ordinarily  we  could  see  but  a  score  of  yards 
ahead,  and  frequently  not  that  far,  and  in  the  tempest  that 
swept  the  mountain  we  dared  not  attempt  the  actual  exploration 
of  the  summit. 

A  crash  of  thunder,  that  seemed  to  rend  the  very  heart  of 
the  mountain,  broke  the  storm  upon  us,  and  silenced  all  other 
sounds.  In  an  instant  more  a  second  crash,  and  the  lightning 
cut  frenzied  zigzags  across  the  blackened  cloud-world  of  quiver- 
ing Pelee.  Then  a  third  and  a  fourth,  and  the  pitons  rolled 
the  echoes  to  one  another  like  artillery  fire.  There  was  no  need 
to  look  at  one  another  —  we  knew  that  we  were  in  a  storm- 
world  of  our  own.  Whatever  was  taking  place,  was  being 
acted  immediately  about  us.  It  was  a  strange  sensation  this, 
sitting  not  knowing  exactly  where  and  having  as  an  unseen 
neighbor  one  of  the  mightiest  destroying  engines  of  the  globe. 


THE   DARING   ASCENT   OF   MONT   PELEE    279 

The  rain  descended  in  merciless  torrents,  and  the  lightning  cut 
blinding  flashes  about  us.  We  sat  bowed  over  our  instruments, 
to  give  them  partial  covering,  but  our  clothing,  so  far  as  pro- 
tection to  ourselves  was  concerned,  might  almost  as  well  have 
been  in  the  sea.  We  hoped  for  a  change,  but  there  was  none. 
Our  boys  were  unhappy  and  trembling  in  fear  of  the  volcano, 
and  silent  tears  appealed  for  a  descent.  They  knew  as  well  as 
we  did  that  there  could  be  but  a  short  interval  between  us  and 
the  fiery  caldron,  and  they  knew,  perhaps  better  than  we  did, 
that  some  of  the  detonations  which  we  had  preferably  referred 
to  thunder  were  in  reality  the  warning  notes  of  the  volcano. 
Leadbeater  and  I  were  not  yet  ready  for  the  descent.  That  for 
which  we  had  climbed  the  mountain  had  eluded  us,  and  yet  could 
hardly  be  more  than  a  stone's  throw  away.  We  knew  not  pre- 
cisely the  condition,  and  dared  not  search ;  but  we  thought  that  a 
favoring  gust  might  lift  the  clouds,  and  permit  us  to  see  ahead. 
It  did  not  come.  My  barometer  had  indicated  no  gathering 
storm,  no  more  than  did  the  barometer  of  Saint  Pierre  during 
the  eruptions  preceding  the  event  of  May  8,  and  indicated  no 
change  now.  The  compass  on  the  crater  rim  showed,  how- 
ever, a  variation  of  from  thirty  degrees  to  forty  degrees  east- 
ward, the  north  needle  being  turned  sharply  in  the  direction  of 
Vive. 

Three-quarters  of  an  hour  of  Pelee's  storm  was  sufficient. 
It  was  perhaps  the  most  trying  of  any  like  period  that  I  had, 
up  to  this  time,  experienced,  and  thinking  it  useless  to  remain 
longer  on  the  summit,  I  decided  upon  a  retreat. 

We  were  both  storm-beaten  and  mind-beaten.  A  day's  effort 
had  yielded  little  beyond  permitting  us  to  say  that  we  had 
reached  the  summit  of  the  mountain.  The  descent  was  as  rapid 
as  the  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  and  mountain  would  permit, 
but  it  was  not  easy  work.  The  deluge  had  graven  uncomfortable 
hollows  and  fissures  in  the  volcano's  sides,  and  running  streams 
of  mud  and  water  had  taken  the  place  of  the  hard  slope  of  the 
early  morning.  There  was  no  longer  a  secure  foothold  any- 
where, and  it  was  with  difficulty  that  we  kept  from  sliding 
into  the  gorge  that  lay  on  both  sides  of  us.  By  the  time  we 
reached  our  mules,  which  had  been  taken  to  a  lower  level  by 
the  frightened  attendant,  the  storm  had  partially  lifted,  and 


280  ANGELO   HEILPEIN 

to  our  surprise,  looking  beneath  the  clouds,  we  found  the 
Falaise,  which  had  been  running  quietly  on  our  up-journey, 
seething  with  steam,  and  threading  its  course  to  the  Capot 
and  to  the  sea  in  a  long  train  of  curling  and  puffing  vapors. 
We  followed  with  our  eyes  the  circuit  of  the  steaming  river 
for  miles  across  the  still  fairly  green  country,  watching  the 
vapor  columns  as  they  wildly  tossed  and  bowed,  but  hearing 
no  sounds  beyond  those  of  our  immediate  neighborhood.  The 
scene  was  an  extraordinary  one,  and  one  that  could  only  be 
compared  in  its  effect  to  a  chain  of  locomotives  steaming  in  line. 
At  this  time  we  thought  that  Pelee  had  broken  out  on  the  side 
turned  to  us,  and  was  disengaging  its  mud  directly  into  the 
trough  of  the  Falaise. 

Our  experience  on  the  narrowed  summit  of  Pelee  during  this 
first  ascent  was  so  novel  and  so  personal  in  its  sensations  that 
it  seems  only  natural  to  place  here  the  impressions  of  my  asso- 
ciate, Mr.  Leadbeater,  as  he  has  recorded  them  elsewhere.  !Nb 
apology  is,  therefore,  necessary  for  introducing  this  portion  of 
his  graphic  narrative: 

When  we  reached  the  edge  of  the  old  crater,  at  an  elevation  of 
about  four  thousand  feet  (the  basin  that  had  contained  the  Lac  des 
Palmistes),  it  rained  in  torrents.  We  waited  about  fifteen  minutes, 
hoping  it  would  clear  up  and  enable  us  to  see  something.  Suddenly 
there  crashed  out  of  the  very  air  above  our  heads  a  cannonading  so 
terrific  that  the  mountain  seemed  to  quake  and  tremble  before  it. 
It  took  us  some  minutes  to  realize  that  it  was  a  peal  of  thunder. 
Then  it  commenced  to  thunder  and  lighten  incessantly,  and  the 
thunder  followed  so  quickly  after  the  lightning  that  they  seemed  to 
come  simultaneously.  The  awful  lightning  flashes  came  in  sheets 
and  bolts  of  fire  and  were  blinding  rather  than  illuminating.  In- 
deed, the  thunder  was  so  loud  that  we  could  feel  the  ground  heave, 
as  it  were,  under  us,  and  the  air  about  us  vibrate.  It  rained  so  hard 
we  could  not  see  ten  feet  away,  and  so  awed  were  we  by  the  thunder 
and  lightning,  and  so  oppressed  by  the  hot,  sultry  atmosphere,  that 
we  did  not  know  but  that  we  were  being  overwhelmed  by  another 
eruption.  I  placed  my  camera  on  the  ground  and  lay  upon  it  to 
keep  it  dry.  But  it  rained  through  my  clothes,  and  it  must  have 
penetrated  even  through  my  body,  for  the  camera  was  soaked. 
Those  frightful  minutes  when  I  lay  on  the  ground  shielding  my 
camera,  with  the  rain  descending  in  perfect  floods  of  water  —  I 


THE   BAKING   ASCENT    OF   MONT    PELEE    281 

never  knew  it  could  rain  as  it  did  then  —  with  the  appalling 
thunder-charged  flashes  playing  incessantly  about  me  and  the  very 
air  quivering  with  the  rapidity  of  the  detonations,  and  but  a  few 
feet  away  the  seething,  sweltering  crater  of  the  most  destructive 
volcano  the  world  has  ever  seen,  will  always  stand  out  in  my 
memory  as  a  weird  and  horrible  dream.  At  last  we  could  bear  it 
no  longer,  and  started  to  come  down  the  mountain,  following  our 
tracks  as  best  we  could.  While  descending  the  mountain  we  found 
that  the  heavy  rains  had  washed  gorges  in  the  mud-covering  of 
the  mountain  two  to  three  feet  deep,  and  in  the  blinding  rain  we 
frequently  stopped  on  the  edge  of  one  of  these  gullies,  which,  sud- 
denly giving  way,  caused  us  to  slip  and  slide  most  of  the  way  down. 
When  we  got  to  the  end  of  the  "  hogback,"  where  we  left  the  mules, 
they  and  their  keeper  had  gone.  We  found  them  later  on  farther 
down  the  mountain  standing  in  the  bright  sunshine. 

Our  day's  work,  while  giving  to  us  many  novel  and  im- 
perishable sensations,  had  terminated  unsuccessfully.  We  had 
been  repulsed  by  the  volcano,  mudded  and  drenched  in  a  way 
that  severely  cautioned  us  in  any  further  effort  not  to  inquire 
too  closely  into  nature's  hidden  secrets.  The  great  caldron  of 
blowing  steam  and  ash  had  not  been  reached,  or  even  seen, 
although  we  could  hardly  have  been  more  than  a  hundred  yards 
from  its  border.  The  question  still  remained,  where  and  how 
was  it  ?  The  evening  wore  off  quietly  as  that  of  the  preceding 
day,  and  Pelee  once  more  presented  itself  in  its  form  of  grand 
and  unconquered  magnificence.  I  studied  carefully  its  vast 
steam-cloud,  with  its  ominous  puffs  of  yellow  and  brown,  and 
attempted  to  locate  the  precise  position  of  its  emergence;  but 
what  we  saw  this  evening,  we  had  seen  the  evening  before,  and 
also  on  the  evening  before  that.  The  lesson  still  remained  to  be 
learned,  and  I  determined  upon  another  ascent  for  the  follow- 
ing day. 

Kennan,  Jaccaci  and  Varian,  three  other  investigators  of  the 
phenomena  of  Mont  Pelee,  had  by  this  time  come  in  from 
Morne  Rouge,  and,  inspired  by  the  extraordinary  workings  of 
the  volcano  which  they  had  witnessed  there  and  at  Vive,  had 
also  determined  upon  an  ascent.  We  joined  forces.  As  on  the 
day  before,  the  mounts  were  obtained  at  Vive,  which  also  fur- 
nished the  somewhat  larger  number  of  attendants  and  carriers 


282  ANGELO   HEILPEIN 

who  were  to  do  duty  for  us.  We  left  the  latter  place  shortly 
after  seven-thirty.  Our  route,  except  in  some  narrowing  curves, 
was  virtually  the  same  that  we  had  travelled  the  day  before. 
Once  past  Morne  Balai,  we  followed  the  direct  course  to  the 
eastern  arete,  up  which  we  somewhat  laboriously  picked  our 
way.  The  ascent,  owing  to  the  still  soft  and  completely  rifted 
condition  of  the  surface  brought  about  by  the  heavy  rains,  was 
considerably  more  fatiguing  than  on  the  previous  day,  but 
reaching  the  summit  was  merely  '  a  pulling  away  at  it/  with 
plenty  of  stops  to  take  breath  and  ease  the  heart's  action.  The 
heat  of  the  open  sunlight  was,  however,  very  trying,  and  it  was 
intense  on  the  exposed  slope  of  cinder  and  ash.  There  was  not 
even  the  whisper  of  a  breeze.  Mr.  Jaccaci  succumbed  to  an 
early  attack  of  acute  dizziness  or  vertigo,  and  was  obliged  to 
abandon  the  ascent.  When  we  came  up  to  the  old-crater  rim, 
the  Lac  des  Palmistes,  shortly  before  eleven  o'clock,  the  weather 
and  mountain  conditions  were  desperately  like  those  which 
ushered  in  the  storm  of  the  preceding  day.  The  aged  mountain 
had  again  buried  its  head  in  cloud  and  vapor,  and  growling 
thunder  reverberations  held  out  little  hope  that  we  should  be 
able  to  accomplish  more  than  we  had  already  done.  Of  the 
distant  lowland  only  parting  patches  could  now  be  seen,  and 
before  long  even  these  were  blotted  out  by  mist  and  rain.  On 
the  top  it  was  all  cloudland,  and  with  squally  rains  coming  and 
going  in  quick  turns. 

We  caught  fleeting  glimpses  of  the  opposing  mornes  that 
rimmed  in  the  basin  at  its  farther  side,  but  as  yet  saw  nothing 
that  gave  more  than  a  feeble  indication  as  to  where  might  be 
the  line  of  the  working  crater.  My  aneroid  reading,  without 
correction  for  temperature,  gave  for  our  position  —  the  same 
that  we  had  occupied  the  day  before  —  four  thousand  and 
twenty-five  feet,  which  satisfied  me  that  the  old  level  of  the 
mountain  had  been  maintained,  and  that  there  had  been,  con- 
trary to  what  had  been  reported,  no  subsidence  as  the  result  of 
the  catastrophic  explosion  of  the  8th.  It  is  true  that  the  piton 
which  bore  the  cross  on  the  Morne  de  La  Croix  had  tumbled 
as  the  result  of  a  fracture,  but  this  loss  to  the  mountain  of  per- 
haps fifty  to  one  hundred  feet  in  no  way  disturbed  the  general 
aspect  or  mass  of  the  volcano.  The  shallow  trough  of  the  former 


THE   DARING   ASCENT   OF   MONT   PELEE    283 

Lac  is  now  floored  with  angular  blocks  and  fragments  of  ancient 
volcanic  debris,  forming  part  of  the  former  stock  of  the  volcano, 
and  with  recently  ejected  scoriae,  lapilli  and  mud-ash.  These 
built  up  the  outer  face,  for  three  hundred  feet  or  more,  of  the 
top  portion  of  the  main  cone.  I  took  the  temperature  at  several 
points  on  the  lake-floor  and  over  the  rim  of  the  basin  and  found 
it  to  be,  at  two  or  three  inches  below  the  surface,  124°  to  130° 
F. ;  at  one  point,  at  a  greater  depth,  the  mercury  rose  to  162°. 
It  was  evident  that  this  high  temperature,  about  60°  above  that 
of  the  air,  was  merely  that  of  the  ejected  material  which  had 
not  yet  had  the  time  to  cool.  Puffs  of  steam  and  sulphur  vapor 
were  issuing  from  a  number  of  surface  vents,  and  from  beneath 
great  boulder  masses  whose  ragged  and  heated  surfaces  were 
scarred  with  yellow  sulphur  blotches,  and  gave  evidence  of 
having  only  recently  been  hurled  to  their  places  from  the  vol- 
cano's mouth.  4 

We  waited  patiently  for  a  lifting  of  the  clouds,  and  it  came 
at  last.  Below  the  mountain's  clouds  we  could  clearly  mark 
out  the  ascending  column  of  steam,  with  its  flocculent  whorls 
rolling  in  upon  themselves  and  upward.  The  position  of  the 
crater  had  been  located,  but  alas !  it  was  for  hardly  more  than 
an  instant.  The  scene  had  shifted  and  disappeared.  We  were 
once  more  in  cloudland,  waiting  and  hoping,  with  our  Martinique 
boys  impatient  of  their  assumed  trials. 

An  angry  cold  wind  was  now  swirling  around  both  sides  of 
the  mountain,  and  with  it  came  a  seemingly  hopeless  rain. 
All  of  a  sudden  a  gust  cleared  the  summit,  and  a  white  sunlight 
illumined  the  near  horizon.  It  seemed  hardly  more  than  three 
hundred  feet  from  us.  Across  the  steaming  lake-bed,  little 
mindful  of  its  puffs  of  vapor  and  sulphur,  we  dashed  to  the 
line  above  which  welled  out  the  steam-cloud  of  the  volcano, 
and  almost  in  an  instant  stood  upon  the  rim  of  the  giant  rift 
in  whose  interior  the  world  was  being  made  in  miniature.  We 
had  reached  our  point.  We  were  four  feet,  perhaps  less,  from 
a  point  whence  a  plummet  could  be  dropped  into  the  seething 
furnace,  witnessing  a  scene  of  terrorizing  grandeur  which  can 
be  conceived  only  by  the  very  few  who  have  observed  similar 
scenes  elsewhere.  Momentary  flashes  of  light  permitted  us  to 
see  far  into  the  tempest-tossed  caldron,  but  at  no  time  was  the 


284  ANGELO   HEILPEINT 

floor  visible,  for  over  it  rolled  the  vapors  that  rose  out  to  moun- 
tain heights.  With  almost  lightning  speed  they  were  shot  out 
into  space,  to  be  lost  almost  as  soon  as  they  had  appeared. 
Facing  us,  at  a  distance  of  seemingly  not  more  than  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet,  danced  the  walls  of  what  appeared  to  be 
the  opposing  face  of  the  crater,  and  somewhat  nearer  the  ragged 
white  rocks,  burnt-out  cinder  masses,  whose  brilliant  incan- 
descence flashed  out  like  beacon-lights  some  days  after  the  fatal 
8th,  and  even  at  our  later  day  illumined  the  night-crown  of 
the  volcano  with  a  glow  of  fire.  We  could  not  tell  at  the  time 
if  they  were  part  of  a  cinder-cone,  or  merely  an  accumulated 
heap  that  had  been  piled  upon  itself.  The  spectacle  was  a  stu- 
pendous one,  —  like  a  wild  tempest  raging  everywhere.  We 
stood  silent,  overawed  in  its  presence.  The  ground  trembled  at 
times,  but  never  with  any  degree  of  force.  We  felt  no  incon- 
venience from  either  gas  or  steam.  A  low  rumbling  detonation, 
broken  at  intervals  by  louder  bursts,  crept  about  the  hidden 
floor  of  the  interior,  from  which  also  issued  the  sounds  of  clink- 
ing, falling  and  sliding  cinders,  the  hissing  of  the  emerging 
steam  —  sounds  which  one  would  fain  describe  were  it  possible 
to  do  so.  I  tried  so  far  as  it  was  possible  to  localize  the  issuing 
sounds,  but  the  '  blanketing '  by  the  enormous  masses  of  swirl- 
ing steam  prevented  this;  everything  seemed  to  come  from 
everywhere,  with  no  marked  accentuation  in  any  particular 
quarter.  Occasional  gusts  of  wind  cleared  the  foreground,  and 
displayed  the  giant  smoke-column  in  grand  magnificence. 

Our  Martinique  boys  appeared  to  be  as  much  impressed  by 
the  scene  as  we  ourselves  were,  and  for  a  time  lost  all  fear  of  the 
awakening  dragon.  We  found  that  we  were  standing  on  the 
edge  of  a  vertical,  perhaps  even  overhanging,  cliff,  and  not  feel- 
ing disposed  to  remain  longer  than  was  necessary  to  make  note- 
book observations  and  take  photographic  views,  left  rather  pre- 
cipitately for  lower  regions. 

I  felt  that  finally  I  had  stood  over  nature's  great  laboratory, 
and  been  permitted  to  study  some  of  its  workings.  Many  years 
before  on  Vesuvius  I  had  gazed  into  the  crater  funnel,  and 
watched  the  molten  magma  of  the  earth  rise  and  fall,  but  the 
scene  was  one  that  could  not  compare  with  this,  grand  and  in- 
spiring though  it  was.  I  attempted  to  locate  the  axis  of  the  vent 


THE   BAKING   ASCENT   OF   MONT   PELEE    285 

as  nearly  as  the  direction  of  the  largely-obscured  walls  and  the 
position  of  the  basin  of  the  Lac  des  Palmistes  permitted,  which 
was  north  to  south,  slightly  southwest.  The  magnetic  needle, 
which  showed  such  a  marked  deflection  on  the  border  of  the  lake- 
basin,  was  normal  or  nearly  so.  The  form  of  the  crater  was  at 
this  time  that  of  a  caldron-rift,  pitching  steeply  downward,  and 
opening  in  a  direction  a  little  off  from  the  line  to  Saint  Pierre. 
The  length  could  be  only  roughly  approximated,  and  at  no  time 
could  we  positively  ascertain  the  extreme  boundaries.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  it  traversed  the  position  of  the  narrow 
rift  known  as  the  Fente,  or  the  Terre  Fendue,  which  had  been  a 
feature  of  the  mountain  since  the  eruption  of  1851,  perhaps 
considerably  preceding  that  event  in  its  existence. 

The  fact  that,  standing  on  the  rim  of  so  active  a  crater,  we 
were  not  inconvenienced  by  any  marked  excess  of  temperature 
seems  rather  remarkable,  and  might  be  thought  to  find  its  ex- 
planation in  the  very  rapidly  ascending  masses  of  steam  —  the 
condition  of  continuous  atmospheric  displacements  which  it 
brought  about.  But  even  these  were  little  appreciable  where  we 
stood,  which  was  more  like  a  region  of  almost  absolute  calm, 
despite  the  storm  that  raged  in  its  centre,  than  one  of  flickering 
disturbance." 

Mr.  Heilprin's  bearing  during  these  trying  hours  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  his  companions.  Mr.  George  Kennan,  in  his 
report  of  the  ascent,  said :  "  I  must  pay  the  highest  possible  trib- 
ute to  Heilprin.  He  is  modest  and  brave,  a  superb  mountaineer 
and  the  nerviest  and  pluckiest  man  I  ever  knew.  The  ascent 
was  the  most  terrifying  experience  of  my  life."  The  press 
throughout  the  country  hailed  the  achievement  as  an  almost 
unparalleled  display  of  scientific  ardor.  In  its  issue  of  June  2, 
the  New  York  Evening  Post  said  editorially : 

"  Newspaper  enterprise  has  to  bow  to  scientific  enthusiasm  in 
the  matter  of  the  first  ascent  of  still  smoking  Mt.  Pelee.  Pro- 
fessor Angelo  Heilprin  was  already  known  as  an  intrepid  ex- 
plorer, delighting  equally  in  Sahara  and  Greenland,  and 
climbing  difficult  Orizaba,  whose  height  and  pre-eminence 
among  Mexican  mountains  he  first  correctly  determined;  but 
his  calm  rivaling  of  the  elder  Pliny  —  and  surpassing  him  in 


286  ANGELO   HEILPRIST 

good  fortune  —  by  mounting  to  study,  in  situ,  a  volcano  in 
eruption,  will  make  his  name  famous  throughout  the  world.  Of 
that  result,  however,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  never  stopped  to 
think.  His  preoccupation  was  entirely  that  of  a  scientist,  bent 
on  discovery  of  the  truth,  even  at  the  hazard  of  his  life.  With 
intelligence  to  guard  against  every  needless  risk,  and  yet  with 
constancy  and  professional  zeal  to  make  him  face  cheerfully  all 
inevitable  danger,  he  gave  a  fine  example  of  the  unconscious 
courage  and  heroism  of  the  scientific  spirit.  No  doubt  he  ex- 
perienced intense  exhilaration,  amid  those  showers  of  boiling 
mud  and  red  hot  cinders,  as  he  went  on  quietly  observing  the 
phenomena  which  his  trained  eye  could  so  well  interpret." 

A  SECOND  VISIT  TO  MARTINIQUE 

Even  greater  were  the  dangers  the  fearless  investigator  en- 
countered during  his  second  visit  to  Martinique,  in  August.  His 
account  of  the  destruction  of  Morne  Rouge  is  as  follows : 

"  Throughout  the  whole  of  Friday,  August  29,  Pelee  kept  up 
a  continuous  growl.  The  sound  came  to  us  like  the  rumbling  of 
wagons  crossing  a  bridge,  and  at  times  like  distant  thunder.  M. 
Louis  des  Grottes,  our  host  at  the  Habitation  Leyritz,  where  we 
had  been  installed  the  evening  before,  felt  uneasy,  and  thought 
that  many  days  might  elapse  before  an  ascent  of  the  mountain 
could  properly  be  attempted.  On  the  evening  of  Monday  preced- 
ing there  had  been  a  wonderful  exhibition  of  volcanic  pyrotech- 
nics, and  everybody  spoke  of  the  great  '  flames '  that  were  seen 
to  shoot  out  from  the  crater,  of  the  volcanic  corona  and  of  scin- 
tillant  stars;  and  since  then  the  volcano  had  been  continually 
in  unrest.  Refugees  were  seeking  the  roads  at  all  points,  and  the 
north  of  the  island  was  once  more  in  the  condition  that  marked 
the  early  days  of  May.  The  Habitation  Leyritz  lies  on  the 
northeastern  foot  of  Mont  Pelee,  at  an  elevation  of  about  five 
hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  and  I  had  selected  it,  on  the  invita- 
tion of  M.  des  Grottes,  as  a  base  of  operations  alternative  to 
Ajoupa-Bouillon  or  Morne  Balai,  it  being  more  closely  ap- 
proached to  the  volcano  than  either  Assier  or  Vive.  Its  position 
is  delightfully  in  the  path  of  the  ocean  breezes,  and  its  stately 
cocoa-palms  are  only  four  miles  distant,  a  vol  d'oiseau,  from  the 


THE   DESTRUCTION    OF   MORNE   ROUGE    28T 

active  crater  of  the  volcano.  When  we  arrived  there  shortly 
before  sunset  the  hour  of  rest  had  already  been  proclaimed  to  the 
workers  on  the  estate,  and  inquisitive  groups  of  coolies  and  dark 
Creoles  lingered  and  loitered  about,  some  chanting  the  evening 
hymn.  The  little  Martinique  blackbirds  whistled  out  their  beau- 
tiful and  mellow  notes  until  late  in  the  evening,  and  after  that, 
except  for  the  roar  of  the  volcano,  the  '  silence  of  night '  was 
left  to  the  minstrelsy  of  the  tree-toads. 

We  were  up  some  time  before  the  rising  sun,  and  saw  the  day 
break  fair,  with  a  gentle  breeze  sweeping  over  the  tops  of  the 
nodding  cane.  A  few  bad  clouds  were  chasing  after  the  eastern 
horizon,  and  others  hung  over  the  black  peaks  of  Carbet,  but  they 
went  the  right  way  for  us,  and  they  augured  well.  The  difficul- 
ties that  attend  starting  in  the  tropics  delayed  our  departure 
until  after  six  o'clock,  an  hour  that  seemed  early  enough  for  the 
kind  of  day  that  promised.  An  hour  before  that  time  it  was 
still  dark.  At  Morne  Balai,  which  we  reached  in  half  an  hour, 
my  little  party,  consisting  of  Julian  Cochrane  and  myself,  with 
three  foot  attendants,  was  joined  by  seven  volunteers,  who  felt 
that  the  spirit  of  the  volcano  had  been  controlled  by  us,  and  be- 
lieved that  they  could  courageously  follow  in  our  footsteps.  One 
of  these  I  had  well  known  from  my  earlier  ascents,  and  he  stood 
as  prophet  and  informant  to  the  others,  basing  his  superiority 
upon  a  very  fragmentary  knowledge  of  English.  Our  purpose 
to  study  the  great  cone  that  had  so  rapidly  built  itself  up  in  the 
heart  of  the  crater  was  perhaps  unknown  to  the  joining  party, 
but  they  held  their  courage  well  throughout  the  greater  part  of 
the  day.  Alas !  poor  souls,  they  little  expected  that  the  tongue 
of  the  fiery  dragon  would  visit  their  homes  ere  night  had  fairly 
fallen,  and  bring  sorrow  and  death  to  the  heart  of  a  peaceful  and 
quiet-loving  community.  When  I  last  rode  through  the  garden- 
lanes  of  Morne  Balai  everything  was  deserted  —  the  gardens 
were  empty  and  the  doors  of  the  thatched  cottages  closed.  New 
ashes  had  fallen  since  the  day  of  Saint  Pierre,  and  the  inhabit- 
ants lacked  the  courage  to  remain.  Life  had  now  come  back  to 
the  village,  and  how  beautiful  this  morning  were  the  copses  of 
banana,  of  palm  and  breadfruit,  the  hedge-rows,  and  the  great 
blazing  blossoms  of  the  hibiscus!  A  more  charming  village 
scene  could  hardly  be  found. 


288  ANGELO   HEILPRIX 

Our  course  up  Pelee  was  from  this  point  the  same  that  I  had 
taken  on  my  previous  ascents,  over  the  easy  arete  that  forms  the 
central  eastern  ray  of  the  volcano,  and  lies  a  little  northward  of 
the  ravine  of  the  Falaise.  The  conditions  of  the  ascent  on  this 
day  were  surprisingly  favorable,  and  we  were  able  to  make  use 
of  our  animals  up  to  a  height  of  nearly  two  thousand  three  hun- 
dred feet.  A  light  growth  of  grass  had  begun  to  cover  the  arid 
slope  of  ash  and  cinder,  and  the  blackened  forest  of  the  ravine 
slopes  was  also  touched  on  the  crown  with  green.  The  beautiful 
tree-ferns,  more  particularly,  gave  evidence  of  this  new  life,  and 
they  promised  to  restore  in  a  short  time  to  Mont  Pelee  that 
verdure  for  which  the  mountain  had  been  dear  to  the  Marti- 
niquians.  It  was  evident  that  the  burned  forest  was  not  abso- 
lutely dead,  and  its  greens  were  already  being  picked  by  troops  of 
blackbirds,  fly-catchers,  and  the  hirondelle-mouche.  Myriads  of 
green  and  green-and-black  caterpillars  were  cropping  the  new 
vegetation.  They  had  found  a  comfortable  home  in  this  newly 
regenerated  upper  world,  and  were  making  the  best  of  their  time. 
It  was  evident  that  the  volcano  had  blown  to  them  a  good  wind. 
Such  sudden  visitations  of  insects  to  recovering  volcanic  regions 
have  been  noted  before,  and  have  brought  many  problems  to  the 
entomologist  which  still  await  solution. 

We  left  our  animals  shortly  after  eight  o'clock,  and  at  that 
time  the  volcano  was  raging.  The  steam-cloud  roared  out  of  a 
seething  furnace  and  swept  the  summit  from  our  view.  Back 
of  us  dark-blue  shadows  were  checkering  the  receding  landscape, 
but  the  ocean  was  the  blue  and  green  of  the  coral  reef,  and  lovely 
Morne  Eouge  was  bathed  in  warm  sunshine.  Nearer  to  us 
Ajoupa-Bouillon,  slumbering  in  sunlight  and  shadow,  lay  almost 
at  our  feet.  We  picked  our  way  leisurely  up  the  cinder  slope, 
but  it  was  evident  that  ejected  bombs  had  recently  scarred  its 
surface,  for  there  were  furrows  and  troughs  and  great  boulders 
where  none  had  been  before.  We  also  noted  a  number  of  the 
puzzling  crater-like  shallow  pits  or  hollows  which  some  have 
thought  to  associate  with  falling  rocks,  others  with  earthquake 
phenomena.  In  a  few  minutes  more  we  were  in  the  storm-cloud, 
with  only  bits  of  landscape  to  follow  us  as  companions.  The 
great  knob  of  Morne  Jacob  appeared  and  disappeared,  and  at 
intervals  we  could  glance  into  the  deep  gorges  on  either  side  of 


THE   DESTRUCTION   OF   MORNE   ROUGE    289 

us,  but  of  the  summit  of  the  mountain  there  was  nothing.  Our 
Martinique  associates  were  uneasy,  for  from  the  invisible  gray 
ahead  came  the  terrific  voice  of  the  volcano.  There  were  no 
accentuated  detonations,  but  a  continuous  roar  that  was  simply 
appalling.  I  thought  on  my  previous  ascent  to  have  heard  some- 
thing, but  this  time  it  was  the  old  sound  multiplied  a  hundred- 
fold. No  words  can  describe  it.  Were  it  possible  to  unite  all  the 
furnaces  of  the  globe  into  a  single  one,  and  to  simultaneously 
let  loose  their  blasts  of  steam,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  such 
a  sound  could  be  produced.  It  was  not  loud  in  the  sense  of  a 
peal  of  thunder,  but  of  fiery  and  tempestuous  storm,  that  could 
best  be  compared  with  the  blowing  of  the  ocean's  wind  through 
the  shrouds  of  a  full-rigged  ship,  only  ten  times  that.  The  moun- 
tain fairly  quivered  under  its  work,  and  it  was  perhaps  not 
wholly  discreditable  that  some  of  us  should  have  felt  anything 
but  comfortable. 

Where  was  all  this  ?  we  asked  ourselves.  In  front  of  us,  but 
invisible.  My  aneroid  gave  for  our  elevation  three  thousand 
four  hundred  feet  —  therefore  we  were  only  six  hundred  feet 
below  the  summit-level  which  marked  the  position  of  the  Lac  des 
Palmistes.  There  appeared  to  be  no  barometric  disturbance, 
nor  was  the  compass-needle  affected.  A  whistling  bomb  flew 
past  us  at  this  time,  but  it  left  but  a  comet's  train  in  our  ears, 
for  it  could  not  be  seen.  We  took  it  first  for  a  flying  bird,  but 
its  course  was  soon  followed  by  another,  and  then  came  the  dull 
thud  of  its  explosion  in  air.  Deep  down  the  ravine  we  could  hear 
the  scattered  parts  tumbling,  sliding  and  crackling.  We  could 
no  longer  deceive  ourselves  as  to  the  character  of  the  struggle  into 
which  we  had  entered.  The  ominous  clicks  in  the  air  told  us 
what  we  might  at  any  moment  expect. 

We  moved  up  slowly,  hardly  more  than  a  few  paces  at  a  time, 
but  with  hope  given  to  us  in  the  occasional  rifting  of  the  clouds. 
Time  and  time  again  the  summit  crest  appeared  beneath  the 
rolling  vapors,  and  it  really  seemed  as  if  the  cone,  of  which  we 
were  in  search,  would  suddenly  come  to  view.  When  we  had 
reached  about  three  thousand  eight  hundred  feet  the  fusillade 
of  bombs  became  overpoweringly  strong,  and  we  were  obliged  to 
retreat.  We  were  in  battle.  The  clouds  had  become  lighter,  and 
we  could  at  times  see  the  bombs  and  boulders  coursing  through 


290  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

the  air  in  parabolic  curves  and  straight  lines,  driven  and  shot 
out  as  if  from  a  giant  catapult.  They  whistled  past  us  on  both 
sides,  and  our  position  became  decidedly  uncomfortable ;  many 
of  the  fragments  took  almost  direct  paths,  and  must  have  been 
shot  into  their  courses  as  a  result  of  explosions  taking  place  above 
the  summit  of  the  volcano.  They  flew  by  us  at  close  range.  De- 
scending perhaps  one  hundred  feet  lower  on  the  slope,  we  took 
shelter  under  a  somewhat  rolling  knob  and  waited  for  a  possible 
cessation  of  the  fusillade.  A  glance  at  my  men  showed  that  they 
were  thoroughly  frightened,  and  most  of  them  were  making 
quick  tracks  to  a  lower  level.  A  lull  favored  a  further  effort. 
"Not  wishing  to  incur  any  responsibility  in  a  call  for  company 
in  what  appeared  to  be  a  rather  hazardous  enterprise,  I  made 
a  second  attempt  by  myself,  keeping  my  body  as  close  to  the 
ground  as  was  possible.  The  clouds  soon  separated  me  from  my 
associates,  and  all  of  visible  nature  that  was  left  to  me  was  a 
patch  of  slope  and  the  shifting  vapors.  Mr.  Cochrane's  figure 
was  the  last  to  disappear.  The  roar  of  the  volcano  was  terrific 

—  awful  beyond  description.    It  felt  as  if  the  very  earth  were 
being  sawed  in  two.    In  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  I  reached 
a  point  just  below  the  summit  —  the  crest  of  the  old  lake  basin 

—  which  was  being  heavily  raked  by  the  fire  of  the  volcano.    I 
could  see  no  more  than  before.    Everything  was  as  if  in  a  surg- 
ing sea,  and  neither  the  cone  nor  what  was  left  of  the  Morne  de 
La  Croix  was  visible.    I  crouched  down  to  the  ground,  but  to 
no  purpose.     It  was  useless  to  remain  longer  in  the  open  fire, 
and  I  descended  to  join  my  associates.    Mr.  Cochrane  was  near 
at  hand,  working  his  camera  and  seemingly  indifferent  to  the  en- 
circling storm,  but  the  negroes  had  gone  far  below,  carrying  our 
provisions  with  them.    I  was  surprised,  indeed,  that  they  should 
have  retained  their  courage  for  so  long  a  time,  for  Pelee  had 
been  unusually  active  for  a  number  of  days,  and  if  men  ever 
feared  anything,  it  was  this  grim  monster  of  Martinique.    But 
most  of  them  had  remembered  my  earlier  ascents,  and  they  child- 
ishly seemed  to  feel  that  there  was  shelter  in  my  wake. 

Shortly  before  noon  a  sudden  lifting  of  the  clouds  revealed 
the  volcano  in  all  its  majestic  fury.  For  the  first  time  since  we 
reached  its  slopes  were  we  permitted  to  see  its  steam-column  — 
that  furious,  swirling  mass  ahead  of  us,  towering  miles  above 


THE   DESTRUCTION   OF   MORNE   KOUGE    291 

the  summit,  and  sweeping  up  in  curls  and  festoons  of  white, 
yellow  and  almost  black.  It  boiled  with  ash.  The  majestic 
cauliflower  clouds  rose  on  all  sides,  joining  with  the  central  col- 
umn, and  it  was  evident  that  the  entire  crater  was  working, 
bottom  as  well  as  summit,  and  with  a  vigor  that  it  would  be  use- 
less to  attempt  to  describe.  Higher  and  higher  they  mount, 
until  the  whole  is  lost  in  the  great  leaden  umbrella  which  seemed 
to  overspread  the  whole  earth.  I  estimated  the  diameter  of  the 
column  as  it  left  the  crest  of  the  mountain  to  be  not  less  than 
fifteen  hundred  feet,  and  its  rate  of  ascent  from  one  and  a  half 
to  two  miles  a  minute,  and  considerably  greater  at  the  initial 
moment  of  every  new  eruption.  Great  exploding  puffs  were 
following  one  another  in  rapid  succession,  and  they  told  the  story 
of  what  was  going  on  inside  the  volcano. 

Cochrane  and  I  were  not  the  only  ones  to  be  inspired  by  this 
extraordinary  and  bewildering  spectacle.  Our  Martinique  men 
seemed  equally  overcome  by  a  grandeur  of  nature,  terrifying  as 
it  was  beautiful,  which  they  had  not  before  seen,  and  of  their 
own  accord  initiated  a  new  effort  to  reach  the  summit.  We 
climbed  back  to  our  former  position,  but  the  bombardment  was 
too  strong  for  us,  and  we  thought  best  to  desist.  The  prospects 
for  study  were  anything  but  promising,  and  it  was  thought  un- 
necessary at  this  time  to  take  further  risks.  Of  our  party  of 
twelve  there  were  now  only  four  left  on  the  upper  slopes  of  the 
volcano,  but  we  still  hoped  for  one  more  chance.  For  a  half  hour 
or  so  we  took  refuge  in  a  hollow  sufficiently  deep  to  about  clear 
our  heads,  and  waited.  But  even  the  pleasures  of  a  mountain 
lunch  did  not  quite  make  this  place  restful,  for  the  bursting 
bombs,  flew  thick  to  one  side,  and  we  were  too  eager  to  watch  the 
flying  fragments  to  permit  ourselves  a  free  moment.  Every 
scattering  mass  brought  us  to  our  feet,  only  to  see  and  hear  the 
fragments  plunging  into  the  abyss  that  lay  to  one  side.  Coch- 
rane and  I  moved  a  piece  higher  up,  and  then  abandoned  the 
effort.  '  Where  did  this  last  block  burst  ? '  I  asked  of  my  asso- 
ciate, and  before  my  question  was  answered  we  were  spattered 
with  mud  from  head  to  foot  by  a  great  boulder,  hardly  smaller 
than  a  flour-barrel,  which  fell  within  ten  feet  of  us,  or  less. 

When  we  reached  the  lower  slopes  we  were  covered  with  ash 
and  mud.  For  an  hour  or  more  we  were  nearly  beneath  the 


292  ANGELO   HEILPRItf 

centre  of  the  great  ash-cloud,  whose  murky  masses  hung  at  a 
dizzy  height  above  us.  Its  mantle-sheet  carried  darkness  to 
Macouba  and  Grande  Riviere,  and  far  over  Dominica  and 
Guadeloupe  the  black  mass  still  swept  out  to  sea.  I  believe  that 
the  ash-cloud  must  have  been  fully  six  miles  above  our  heads. 
It  rolled  out  a  few  peals  of  thunder,  but  we  observed  no  flashes 
of  lightning.  The  ash  fell  lightly,  and  coming  mixed  with 
water  soon  consolidated  into  a  paste.  It  had  the  temperature 
of  the  surrounding  air  —  was  not  warm.  There  were  no  large 
particles.  The  coarser  material  fell  miles  from  us,  at  positions 
situated  more  nearly  under  the  periphery  of  the  cloud. 

It  is  singular  that  even  at  the  point  where  I  was  nearest  to 
the  issuing  steam,  a  distance  of  probably  less  than  four  hundred 
feet,  no  marked  atmospheric  disturbance  was  perceptible,  nothing 
to  even  remotely  suggest  a  cyclonic  or  suctional  whirl.  One  could 
readily  have  expected  something  of  this  kind  to  occur.  Nor  do 
I  believe  that  there  was  any  noticeable  elevation  in  the  temper- 
ature of  the  air.  Unfortunately,  the  single  thermometer  that  I 
had  with  me  had  broken  earlier  in  the  day,  and,  therefore,  my 
note  on  this  point  rests  solely  on  a  personal  impression.  Cer- 
tainly there  was  no  emphasized  change  in  temperature.  I  could 
detect  no  gaseous  emanations,  except,  perhaps,  a  very  feeble 
taint  of  sulphur. 

When  we  again  got  on  the  level  ground  back  of  the  Habita- 
tion Leyritz  we  were  startled  by  a  most  violent  eruption  from 
Pelee,  a  great  shaft  of  steam  and  ash  being  suddenly  shot  out 
to  a  most  marvellous  height,  perhaps  not  less  than  five  or  six 
miles.  It  went  up  as  a  distinct  column  of  its  own,  swiftly  dis- 
tancing the  other  cloud-masses  by  which  it  was  enveloped.  It 
was  a  prelude  to  the  incidents  of  the  evening  that  followed. 

We  arrived  at  our  shelter  a  little  before  five  o'clock,  some- 
what to  the  relief  of  the  household,  who  had  become  apprehen- 
sive regarding  our  safety.  Early  in  the  evening  the  big  blaze 
from  an  incendiary  fire  announced  the  destruction  of  the  case 
de  bagasse  of  the  Habitation  Pecoul,  but  it  gave  us  little  con- 
cern, as  our  cane-fields  were  sufficiently  removed  to  insure  them 
from  contact  with  the  flames.  Still,  M.  des  Grottes  thought  it 
advisable  to  examine  the  premises,  and  he  rode  down  with  his 
brother,  more,  perhaps,  as  a  pastime  than  as  a  necessity,  re- 


THE   DESTRUCTION    OF   MOENE   KOUGE    293 

turning  for  a  late  evening  meal.  While  still  seated  at  the  table, 
a  flash  of  lightning  and  a  dull  thud  told  us  in  an  instant  that 
something  was  happening.  We  were  out  at  once.  This  was  a 
few  minutes,  perhaps  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  after  nine  o'clock. 
The  volcano  was  still  distantly  growling.  The  heavens  were 
aglow  with  fire,  electric  flashes  of  blinding  intensity  traversing 
the  recesses  of  black  and  purple  clouds,  and  casting  a  lurid 
pallor  over  the  darkness  that  shrouded  the  world.  Scintil- 
lating stars  burst  forth  like  crackling  fireworks,  and  ser- 
pent lines  wound  themselves  in  and  out  like  travelling  wave- 
crests.  The  spectacle  was  an  extraordinary  and  terrifying  one, 
and  I  confess  that  it  left  an  impression  of  uncomfortable  doubt 
in  our  minds  as  to  what  would  be  the  issue.  One  could  not  biit 
feel  that  a  tremendous  destruction  was  impending. 

The  number  of  forms  in  which  the  illumination  appeared  was 
bewildering,  and  I  can  only  recall  a  few,  the  picture  of  which 
presented  itself  to  my  eyes  with  precision :  short,  straight,  rod- 
like  lines,  wave-lines,  spirals,  long-armed  stars,  and  circles  with 
star-arms  hanging  off  from  the  border  like  so  many  tails.  In 
addition  to  these  were  the  scintillant  stars  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made,  and  the  blinding  flashes  of  normal  or  zig- 
zag lightning.  There  were  no  peals  of  thunder,  but  a  continuous 
roar  swept  through  the  heavens,  mounting  with  crescendos  and 
falling  off  with  alternating,  far-reaching  diminuendos.  Some 
pretend  to  have  heard  a  feeble  crackling,  like  that  which  is  so 
often  heard  in  association  with  an  auroral  display,  but  I  am  not 
sure  that  I  could  record  this  condition,  which  may  easily  have 
existed,  among  my  own  experiences.  The  flashes  were  bewilder- 
ingly  numerous,  and  the  singular  forms  interwoven  with  one 
another  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  localization  difficult.  The  scin- 
tillant stars  alone  appeared  to  have  a  place  of  their  own,  nearer 
the  border  of  the  great  cloud,  and  perhaps  in  the  highest  parts 
of  it.  Directly  over  the  summit  of  Pelee  there  was  little  to  be 
seen.  Who  is  there  to  tell  us  what  these  peculiar  flashes  are? 
Are  they  electric,  or  are  they  the  flashes  of  burning  gases  ?  It 
would,  probably,  be  easy  to  determine  their  nature  by  means  of 
the  spectroscope,  but  this  form  of  examination  has  not  yet  been 
made.  It  is  certain  that  most  of  them  are  not  connective  dis- 
charges, for  they  run  through,  or  are  contained  in,  individual 


294  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

clouds  of  small  dimensions.  The  phenomena  appear  to  be  iden- 
tical with  those  which  were  noted  to  accompany  the  great  erup- 
tion of  Tarawera,  in  New  Zealand,  in  1886. 

As  our  eyes  feasted  upon  this  scene  of  majestic  grandeur,  we 
almost  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  ashes  were  falling  about  us.  A 
great  pattering  of  pumice  and  lapilli  had  ushered  in  the  storm, 
and  for  a  while  it  sounded  as  if  we  were  in  a  tropical  hail-storm. 
Only  the  fragments  first  thrown  were  large,  a  few  an  inch  or 
more  in  size,  and  those  following  were  like  peas  and  lentils,  and 
then  like  sand.  But  even  the  smaller  particles  came  down  with 
much  force,  and  the  flesh  stung  as  it  was  touched  by  them.  They 
were  all  angular  bits  of  andesite  or  trachyte,  white  and  gray  in 
color.  We  were  out  in  our  bared  heads,  but  it  was  soon  found 
necessary  to  protect  them.  The  fall  lasted  somewhat  over  an 
hour,  or  to  nearly  half-past  ten.  All  motion  in  the  atmosphere 
ceased  at  this  time,  and  for  once  the  location  Leyritz  lost  its 
usual  refreshing  coolness.  The  falling  ash  felt  warm,  but  M.  des 
Grottes's  thermometer  failed  to  indicate  anything  special. 

It  was  not  given  to  us  to  close  the  night  quietly.  The  flashing 
sky  above  and  the  falling  ash  had  yet  a  complement.  For  over 
an  hour  the  southwest  was  glowing  fiery  red,  and  patches  of 
lurid  light  moved  themselves  into  the  black  of  the  volcanic  cloud. 
"No  flame  was  visible,  but  it  was  only  too  evident  that  fire  was 
devastating  somewhere.  Morne  Rouge  lay  to  the  same  point  of 
the  compass,  and  we  intuitively  asked  ourselves  if  it  could  be 
that  town  aflame.  Ajoupa-Bouillon  lay  a  little  to  one  side,  al- 
most adjoining  us,  and  if  it  were  on  fire  we  could  easily  have 
seen  the  flames.  When  we  retired  for  the  night,  M.  des  Grottes 
had  decided  to  desert  the  habitation.  Pelee  was  too  close  to  us, 
and  too  active  to  be  sought  for  as  the  simple  ornament  which  it 
had  been  designated  by  the  Scientific  Commission  of  1851. 
Most  of  the  working  inhabitants  of  the  plantation  had  betaken 
themselves  to  the  coast  immediately  after  the  first  storm  of  the 
evening,  terror-stricken  with  the  unceasing  roar  of  the  volcano 
and  the  flashing  lightning,  and  my  own  men  had  joined  them  in 
their  mad  flight.  All  thoughts  of  a  new  exploration  of  the  sum- 
mit of  the  volcano  on  the  morrow  had  vanished.  It  was  not 
without  apprehension  that  the  great  door  of  the  manse  was 
closed  that  night.  I  did  not  quite  share  M.  des  Grottes's  fears 


THE   DESTRUCTION    OF    MORNE   ROUGE-  295 

that  there  might  be  no  one  in  the  morning  to  open  it,  but  the 
hours  for  rest  were  spent  mainly  in  thinking. 

The  night-air  was  almost  without  breeze,  so  different  from 
what  we  had  had  up  till  now.  I  tossed  around  until  about  one 
o'clock,  sleeping  in  snatches,  but  hardly  resting.  At  this  time 
there  was  another  sharp  pattering  of  cinders,  and  I  moved  up 
to  the  window,  only  to  see  darkness.  On  another  side  the  sky 
was  flashing  bright  tongues  of  light,  but  I  saw  nothing  of  it, 
and  knew  not  that  it  was  taking  place.  Before  retiring  again  I 
had  to  clear  my  bed  of  ashes,  for  the  covers  and  pillows  were 
being  rapidly  filled,  and  a  new  fall  was  only  just  beginning. 
The  poor  tree-toads,  despite  everything,  were  still  chirping, 
and  manifestly  to  them  life  was  not  a  burden,  nor  even  a  piece 
of  anxiety.  I  do  not  know  to  what  extent  it  is  true  that  before 
the  eruption  of  May  8  the  animals  of  the  field  and  forest  gave 
signs  of  uneasiness,  and  summarily  left  their  homes  in  search 
of  new  quarters.  Nothing  of  this  kind  appears  to  have  been 
noted  on  this  side,  which  is  in  itself  not  conclusive  evidence 
denying  the  condition  reported,  and  I  know  that  on  Sunday 
morning  the  blackbirds  were,  as  usual,  gambolling  about  the 
cocoanut  crowns,  and  sending  out  their  joyful  notes  to  greet  the 
rising  sun. 

Before  the  morning  had  yet  broken,  news  reached  us  that  the 
fiery  tongue  of  Pelee  had  carried  death  and  desolation  to  Morne 
Balai.  The  flash  of  nine  o'clock,  when  the  heavens  were  glow- 
ing and  scintillating  with  fire,  was  the  lumen  that  showed  the 
path  to  the  pretty  village  which  we  had  left  hardly  five  hours 
before,  and  from  which  weeping  messengers  had  now  come  to 
ask  for  aid.  I  immediately  rode  out  with  M.  Edouard  des 
Grottes  to  ascertain  the  extent  of  the  casualties  and  what  in  fact 
had  taken  place.  We  had  hardly  a  mile  to  go,  even  with  the 
windings  of  the  path,  and  were  soon  conducted  to  the  scene  of  the 
disaster.  In  one  of  the  low  thatched  cottages  two  bodies  were 
stretched  out  stiff  in  death,  and  near  by  others  were  lying  groan- 
ing in  agony  from  the  terrible  burns  they  had  received.  Still 
others,  which  we  did  not  see,  were  in  the  neighboring  cases.  We 
gave  such  comfort  as  reassuring  words  could  offer,  but,  alas  I  of 
what  value  are  they  ?  M.  des  Grottes  arranged  for  the  care  and 
removal  of  the  wounded,  and  we  then  left.  One  of  those  who  had 


296  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

been  with  me  on  the  mountain  in  the  afternoon  was  a  victim  to 
the  volcano's  wrath,  and  his  body  lay  not  far  from  the  hut 
where  we  had  halted  for  a  few  minutes  for  a  friendly  chat,  and 
which  was  now  flat  with  the  ground.  It  had  tumbled  with  the 
volcano's  blast ;  others  like  it  had  fallen  under  the  weight  of  ash 
that  had  been  showered  upon  them. 

My  parting  from  Morne  Balai  was  a  sad  one.  It  was  hard  to 
realize  that  this  pretty  little  village,  which  appeared  to  me  so 
joyful  a  few  hours  before,  should  now  be  clouded  in  the  shadow 
of  death  —  death  driven  to  it  by  the  same  force  whose  enigma  I 
was  attempting  to  penetrate.  As  we  looked  down  upon  it  from 
the  slopes  of  Pelee,  it  lay  so  peacefully  embowered  beneath  its 
clumps  of  verdure,  apparently  so  far  from  danger's  door.  Na- 
ture had  turned  her  hand  and  heart,  but  this  was  only  a  part  of 
the  history  of  the  night  before.  Ajoupa-Bouillon,  Morne 
Eouge,  Morne  Capot,  the  heights  of  Bourdon,  were  wrecked,  or 
had  been  entirely  wiped  out,  and  with  them  two  thousand  more 
of  Martinique's  inhabitants  were  sent  to  their  graves.  On  all 
these  sites  we  had  gazed  in  the  quieter  afternoon ;  we  had  noted 
the  fleeting  cloud-shadows  passing  over  them,  and  seen  the  smil- 
ing fields  and  forests  that  bound  them  into  one  vast  sea  of  green. 
Desolation  had  swept  all  this  into  gray  and  black.  The  very 
slope  that  we  had  travelled  over  was  culled  in  the  fiery  blast, 
and  wreck  and  ruin  were  everywhere.  Our  own  escape  was, 
indeed,  a  very  narrow  one,  for  the  blast  swept  the  land  to  both 
sides  of  us,  and  even  descended  to  the  rear  of  the  Habitation. 
Good  fortune  much  more  than  management  gave  to  us  our  place 
of  refuge. 

It  was  only  when  we  reached  Vive  that  the  full  extent 
of  the  catastrophe  was  made  known  to  us.  The  great  sugar 
estate  had  once  more  set  her  wheels  moving,  and  from  the  lofty 
chimney  curls  of  smoke  were  again  peacefully  flowing  over  the 
verdant  fields  of  cane.  The  Riviere  Capot,  whose  debordements 
had  been  so  much  feared  and  had  caused  so  much  damage,  was  no 
longer  a  dangerous  stream,  and  confidence  came  to  all  who  felt 
that  the  worst  of  Pelee  was  over.  Its  work  was  thought  to  be- 
long to  the  south  and  to  the  west,  and  few  feared,  even  in  the 
face  of  the  magnificent  pyrotechnic  display  of  later  days,  that 
anything  serious  could  happen  on  this  side.  Refugees  had  been 


THE   DESTRUCTION   OF   MORNE   ROUGE    297 

returning  by  hundreds  to  their  abandoned  habitations,  and  the 
silence  of  desolation  once  more  woke  to  the  voice  of  the  living. 

In  front  of  the  great  TJsine,  when  we  arrived  there  this  time, 
crowds  of  refugees  coming  from  Basse-Pointe,  Macouba  and 
Grande-Riviere,  and  from  minor  hamlets  in  the  interior,  had 
assembled,  and  travelling  parties  were  all  over  the  roadways. 
Afoot  and  on  wagon,  everybody  was  going,  with  no  one  having 
a  good  word  for  the  country.  Improvised  ambulances  were 
being  sent  in  to  Ajoupa-Bouillon,  and  since  the  earlier  hours  of 
morning  the  wounded  were  being  brought  out  in  scores  and  sent 
down  to  Grande- Anse  to  be  placed  under  government  treatment. 
The  good  people  of  the  TJsine  were  doing  everything  that  under 
the  circumstances  could  be  done  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of 
those  who  were  still  living,  but,  unfortunately,  for  many  their 
work  came  too  late,  for  they  died  on  the  roadway.  And  perhaps 
it  was  best  that  it  was  so,  for  death  removed  from  the  body  an 
agony  that  cannot  be  conceived,  while  the  chance  for  recovery 
was  all  but  nil.  Less  than  four  months  had  elapsed  since  the 
catastrophe  of  May  8  overwhelmed  Saint  Pierre,  and  the  trag- 
edy was  being  enacted  over  again. 

M.  Joseph  Clerc  kindly  invited  me  to  join  him  in  a  survey 
of  the  situation  at  Ajoupa-Bouillon,  and  we  rode  out  almost 
immediately  after  my  return  to  Vive.  The  village  of  Ajoupa- 
Bouillon  lies  on  the  eastern  foot  of  Mont  Pelee,  in  a  direct  line 
not  more  than  one  mile  from  the  more  recognized  slope  of  the 
volcano,  and  at  elevations  ranging  from  about  eight  hundred 
to  thirteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  some  extreme  parts  rising 
possibly  higher.  It  is  connected  on  the  inner  side  with  Morne 
Rouge  by  one  of  the  finest  roads  in  the  island,  which  before  the 
catastrophe  of  this  day  was  bordered  by  a  woodland  of  singular 
beauty.  Its  houses  were  mainly  of  wood,  but  there  were  others 
of  a  more  substantial  construction,  and  nearly  all  had  gardens 
of  their  own.  A  graceful  church  steeple,  still  standing,  rises  up 
from  nearly  the  highest  part  of  the  village.  Four  days  before 
this  second  visit  I  had  come  out  with  the  acting  Mayor  of  the 
village,  M.  Kloss,  to  look  over  his  large  cacao  estates,  and  to  join 
in  an  excursion  to  the  Trianon,  the  site  of  a  former  hospital 
camp,  situated  directly  above  what  had  been  assumed  to  be  a 
new  crater  in  the  gorge  of  the  Falaise.  At  that  time  Ajoupa- 


298  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

Bouillon  looked  more  attractive  than  I  had  ever  seen  it  before. 
The  vegetation  was  at  its  best,  and  seemed  to  have  profited  by 
the  ash  that  had  been  thrown  over  it  in  the  early  days  of  May. 
ISTot  here  alone,  but  all  over  the  north  this  extreme  of  '  push- 
ing '  fertility  was  noticeable,  and  everybody  remarked  upon  the 
luxuriance  of  growth  which  distinguished  field  as  well  as  forest 
To  this  end,  at  least,  of  adding  fertility  to  the  soil,  the  volcano 
may  have  contributed,  and  done  something  to  redeem  its  bad 
name.  To-day,  alas !  much  of  this  had  gone.  In  place  of  field 
and  forest  there  were  desolate  plains,  gray-scarred,  ash-covered, 
and  bleak  almost  as  the  African  desert  We  looked  over  to  the 
mountain-heights  and  down  into  the  valleys  and  gorges,  and 
everywhere  the  eye  fell  upon  ruin  and  desolation.  Only  back 
of  us  and  in  the  farther  distance  was  there  enough  of  verdure 
left  to  remind  us  of  the  past 

The  force  of  the  destruction  was  extraordinary.  Before  we 
reached  the  main  scene  of  the  catastrophe  the  wreck  was  already 
fully  indicated  in  a  number  of  houses  which  were  laid  flat  with 
the  ground,  and  in  overturned  trees  with  buttressed  roots  lying 
to  the  side  of  the  coming  blast.  Boards  were  found  completely 
penetrated  by  others  that  had  been  shot  through  them.  It  was 
evident  at  a  glance  that  it  was  the  history  of  Saint  Pierre  over 
again.  The  zone  of  destruction  began  a  short  distance  above 
and  beyond  the  church,  and  extended  almost  without  inter- 
ruption, so  far  as  we  could  see  from  the  heights,  to  Morne 
Rouge.  Looking  over  to  the  site  of  that  town,  we  saw  before  us 
nothing  but  a  withered  plain,  with  arid  slopes  on  one  side  of  it, 
and  slightly  green  monies  on  the  other.  Cattle  and  horses  were 
lying  on  their  backs,  with  their  legs  rigidly  extended  into  mid- 
air. A  few  more  fortunate  beasts,  with  raw  flesh  protruding 
from  their  tightened  hides,  were  moving  aimlessly  about,  as  if 
dazed  by  the  conditions  that  now  surrounded  them.  Clear  up 
to  the  low  saddle  between  the  Morne  Jacob  and  the  Calebasse 
the  eye  followed  the  bleak  landscape,  and  it  was  plain  to  see 
that  the  tornadic  blast  had  this  time  lined  its  course  over  this 
arete,  instead  of  confining  itself  to  the  zone  of  the  Riviere 
Blanche  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  mountain.  The  first  houses 
that  we  examined  had  simply  collapsed.  They  occupied  their 
own  ground  and  were  merely  a  mass  of  sticks  and  roof  material, 


THE   DESTRUCTION    OF   MOKNTE   EOUGE    299 

covering  all  that  the  houses  contained  —  inmates  probably  as 
well  as  their  belongings.  We  put  our  ears  to  the  ground  and  to 
the  planking,  but  could  hear  no  sound.  Off  on  a  side-lane  we 
passed  a  little  cottage  apparently  untouched  on  the  exterior,  and 
hearing  deep  moaning  we  entered.  A  poor  woman,  of  perhaps 
thirty  years,  was  rolling  in  agony  in  one  corner  of  a  dark  room, 
her  flesh  terribly  burned  and  hanging  in  places  from  the  bone. 
She  called  incessantly  for  water  to  relieve  her  excoriated  throat, 
but  it  could  not  be  furnished.  M.  Clerc  sent  immediately  for 
the  gendarme,  to  have  her  removed  where  friendly  care  could 
be  administered  to  her,  but  she  died  shortly  after  our  leaving. 
We  entered  another  case  near  by.  A  dim  taper  illumined  a 
nearly  black  interior  sufficiently  to  permit  us  to  see  a  writhing 
figure  being  tended  by  the  hand  of  one  who  was  left,  probably 
dearest  to  it.  The  cries  of  pain  were  heart-rending.  Flies  were 
swarming  everywhere  about  the  place  and  the  odor  was  almost 
unbearable,  as  the  precaution  had  been  taken  to  keep  the  door 
closed.  A  body,  relieved  from  anguish,  lay  stiff  in  another 
corner.  We  passed  from  this  to  another  house  and  saw  the  same 
picture  repeated.  In  reply  to  inquiries  put  to  him  by  M.  Clerc, 
one  of  the  inmates,  perhaps  less  terribly  burned  than  some 
others,  stated  that  he  had  been  struck  by  the  hot  blast  at  the 
moment  of  opening  the  door  of  his  case,  which  he  had  done  as- 
suming that  the  storm  had  passed.  Instantly  the  fiery  air  envel- 
oped him,  and  he  felt  the  sensation  of  choking.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  air  to  breathe.  His  flesh  was  as  if  baked  and  steamed, 
with  raw  red  masses  appearing  where  there  was  no  longer  skin. 
The  clothing  had  remained  untouched.  I  inquired  if  he  had 
noted  gas  of  any  kind.  He  replied  in  the  negative,  except  to 
the  extent  that  a  feeble  sulphurous  odor,  already  appreciable  in 
the  earlier  part  of  the  evening,  could  be  detected.  We  obtained 
almost  exactly  the  same  history  from  an  adjoining  cottage.  In 
some  cases,  perhaps  even  a  large  number,  where  the  cottages 
had  the  doors  and  windows  firmly  closed,  and  were  able  to  with- 
stand the  force  of  the  tornadic  ferment,  there  was  little  or  no 
injury  done.  In  the  greater  number  of  cases,  however,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  fiery  breath  entered  even  where  every  opening 
avenue  had  been  secured.  This  was  also  the  case,  as  I  ascer- 
tained later,  at  Morne  Kouge. 


300  ANGELO   HEILPRLN" 

There  was  here,  as  at  Saint  Pierre,  the  same  reference  to  the 
feu,  or  fire,  but  it  was  evident  that  only  a  heated  or  a  luminous 
blast  was  conveyed  by  this  designation,  and  nothing  burning 
with  a  flame.  It  seems  certain  that  in  some  instances  the  dark- 
ness of  the  interiors  was  actually  illumined  at  the  time  of  the 
entry  of  the  hot  blast,  and  some  claim  to  have  seen  electric  dis- 
charges traverse  the  room.  I  think  this  condition  exceedingly 
likely,  and  have  always  believed  that  localized  lightning  must 
have  played  an  important  part  in  the  destruction  of  life  at  Saint 
Pierre.  There  was  no  evidence  at  Ajoupa-Bouillon  of  anything 
having  burned  with  a  flame  within  the  village  itself  nor  in  the 
surroundings.  One-half  or  more  of  the  settlement  had  been 
scorched  or  swept  out  of  existence,  but  there  had  been  no  fire  of 
any  kind.  The  sticks  and  planking  of  the  cottages  showed  no 
change  to  the  eyes  except  that  they  had  become  gray,  mainly, 
perhaps,  as  the  result  of  the  splattering  with  ash.  Even  the 
dry  palm-thatching  had  remained  intact,  with  no  evidence  of 
true  burning  of  any  kind.  The  trees  and  bushes  that  still  stood 
in  and  out  of  the  village  had  their  leaves,  clinging  to  the  twigs 
and  branches,  shrivelled  up  and  turned  to  gray  and  umber. 
Nothing  had  been  carbonized,  although  the  sap  had  been  exter- 
minated and  the  smaller  twigs  broke  fragile.  I  searched  in 
vain  for  any  indication  of  active  terrestrial  gases,  and  could 
detect  no  trace  of  any  gaseous  odor,  not  even  that  of  sulphur. 

The  destruction  of  Ajoupa-Bouillon  took  place  almost  im- 
mediately after  nine  o'clock  of  the  previous  evening.  It  was 
also  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Morne  Rouge  and  the  inva- 
sion of  Home  Capot,  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  all  the 
havoc  that  had  been  wrought  on  this  fatal  August  30  was  the 
result  of  one  explosive  blast,  whatever  may  have  been  its  exact 
nature,  or  of  a  series  of  such  blasts  following  rapidly  upon  one 
another.  It  is  singular  that  we,  who  were  passing  the  evening 
at  the  absolute  foot  of  the  volcano,  much  closer  to  it  than  some 
points  that  had  been  destroyed,  and  remarking  upon  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  electric  display,  absolutely  above  us,  should 
barely,  if  at  all,  have  noted  the  detonations  which  preceded, 
acompanied,  or  followed  the  explosions.  At  St.  Kitts,  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy  miles  northwestward,  the  booming  of  the  vol- 
cano sounded  at  this  time  like  the  cannonading  of  a  naval  com- 


THE   DESTRUCTION   OF   MORNE   ROUGE    301 

bat  in  which  the  largest  guns  were  being  used;  and  the  same 
observation  was  made  at  Port-of -Spain  and  elsewhere  in  Trini- 
dad, at  a  somewhat  farther  distance  in  a  direct  line  southward. 
In  Fort-de-France  hardly  more  than  the  continuous  terrific  roar 
of  the  volcano  could  be  heard,  and  it  was  this,  together  with  the 
illumined  ash-cloud,  which  threw  the  inhabitants  into  conster- 
nation and  initiated  the  new  panic.  I  confess  my  inability  to 
satisfactorily  explain  this  singular  disposition  of  the  sound- 
waves, as  every  explanation  that  has  suggested  itself  to  me 
seems  to  meet  with  some  objection.  It  is  not  the  distance  at 
which  the  detonations  were  noted  which  imposes  the  difficulty 
to  the  problem,  but  the  fact  that  so  transcendent  a  sound,  origi- 
nated with  explosive  violence,  should  hardly  have  been  noted  in 
or  near  the  epicentral  region.  Is  it  an  extreme  condition  of 
sound-shadow  ?  Or  has  the  cavernous  and  '  blanketed '  con- 
dition of  the  volcano  something  to  do  with  this?  Or  are  we 
forced  to  admit  a  series  of  paroxysmal  deep-seated  explosions 
occurring  in  the  horizontal  conduit  of  the  volcano,  and  imme- 
diately antecedent  to  the  vertical  discharge?  The  latter  con- 
dition, apart  from  any  relation  to  the  present  inquiry,  is,  of 
course,  well  possible,  and  even  very  likely.  The  acoustical  rela- 
tions of  the  May  8  eruption  were  similar  to  those  of  the  later 
day,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Alexander  von  Humboldt, 
referring  to  the  eruption  of  the  Soufriere  of  St.  Vincent  in 
1812,  remarks  upon  the  same  peculiarity  of  sound-carriage  — 
the  eruption  being  more  distinctly  audible  at  a  distance  from 
the  island  than  near  to  it. 

The  conditions  of  time  did  not  permit  me  to  visit  Morne 
Rouge,  and  my  only  glimpse  of  the  destroyed  city  was  obtained 
in  sailing  out  from  the  island.  The  sole  structure  visible  was 
the  stately  church  and  its  sharp  steeple,  always  so  prominent 
as  seen  from  the  site  of  the  northern  Saint  Pierre.  A  part  of 
the  roof  had  been  lifted,  but  this  could  not  be  seen  —  nor  the 
other  remaining  houses  which  told  of  the  former  existence  of 
a  city  whose  population  ranged  from  three  thousand  to  four 
thousand  or  more.  Like  its  sister  city,  Saint  Pierre,  to  whose 
wealthier  inhabitants  it  ministered  the  cool  of  mountain 
breezes  and  the  solace  of  verdant  fields  and  forests,  Morne 
Rouge  was  wiped  out  —  razed  to  the  ground  and  in  part  burned 


302  X      AKXJELO   HEILPRIST 

aflame.  The  glare  of  its  fire  was  plainly  visible  to  us  at  the 
Habitation  Leyritz.  The  country  on  all  sides  of  the  town  was 
desolated,  and  nothing  remained  of  the  beautiful  greens  which 
gave  the  charm  to  the  location.  The  whole  Calebasse  slope  was 
swept  clear,  and  far  off,  on  the  heights  of  Fonds-Saint-Denis 
and  over  nearly  to  the  Pitons  de  Carbet,  could  we  see  the  en- 
tering-wedges  of  the  scarred  vegetation.  Pelee  had  wonderfully 
increased  its  zone  of  force. 

There  would  appear  to  be  at  this  time  no  way  of  closely 
approximating  the  casualties  at  Morne  Rouge,  although  it  is 
all  but  certain  that  at  least  twelve  hundred  perished.  On  the 
morning  of  the  fatal  day,  as  I  was  informed  by  one  of  the 
Brothers  associated  with  the  Vicar-General  of  Martinique,  M. 
Parel,  two  thousand  one  hundred  rations  had  been  distributed 
by  the  government  officials,  the  bulk  of  the  population  being  still 
held  on  the  list  of  the  sinistres  of  May  8.  It  is  thought  that 
several  hundreds  must  have  sought  more  secure  quarters 
(where  ?)  during  the  day,  when  the  activity  of  the  volcano  be- 
came unbearable,  and  of  this  number  probably  the  greater  part 
was  saved.  The  Vicar-General  himself  believed  that  from 
twelve  hundred  to  fifteen  hundred  perished,  excepting  perhaps 
fifty  or  sixty,  all  who  remained  up  to  the  hour  of  nine  o'clock. 
Many  of  the  corpses  were  swept  far  from  the  site  of  the  catas- 
trophe, others  remained  buried  under  the  debris  that  lies  over 
them,  and  still  others  were  burned  to  a  crisp  mass.  Save  the 
church  and  two  or  three  other  buildings,  all  the  houses  of  the 
town  were  of  wood. 

A  particularly  sad  moment  in  the  annihilation  of  Morne 
Rouge  was  the  taking  away  of  Pere  Mary,  the  good  curate  of 
the  church,  whose  faithful  work  in  ministering  to  the  wants  of 
those  who  stayed  during  the  storm  of  May  8  will  long  be  remem- 
bered in  the  history  of  Martinique.  He  had  only  recently  re- 
turned from  Fort-de-France,  and  now  perished  with  nearly  all 
those  who  had  returned  with  him,  thinking  that  danger  had 
passed.  When  the  presbytery  was  on  fire  he  sought  the  shelter 
of  the  church,  but  was  struck  by  the  hot  blast  before  that  build- 
ing could  be  reached.  He  succeeded,  however,  in  dragging  him- 
self into  the  interior,  and,  with  terrible  suffering,  stretched  him- 
self upon  a  bench.  Here  he  was  found  at  four  o'clock  of  the 


THE   DESTRUCTION   OF   MORKE   KOUGE    303 

following  morning,  still  fully  conscious  and  expressing  anxiety 
for  his  flock.  He  was  removed  to  Fonds-Saint-Denis,  and  thence 
to  Fort-de-France,  where  he  expired  at  eleven  o'clock  of  the 
morning  of  September  1  —  a  man  honored  by  all. 

At  the  Hopital  of  Fort-de-France  I  had  the  advantage  of  an 
interview  with  a  lovely  French  girl  of  perhaps  seventeen  years, 
Mile.  Desiree  Martin-d'Harcourt,  who  had  been  brought  down 
as  one  of  the  wounded  from  Morne  Rouge,  and  who  gave  me  a 
very  intelligent  statement  of  her  impressions  of  what  had  taken 
place  on  the  evening  of  the  30th.  Her  mother,  more  burned 
than  herself,  and  also  her  brother,  were  being  cared  for  in  the 
same  room.  The  family  had  retired  for  the  night,  not  being 
able  to  stand  the  strain  which  the  roaring  of  the  volcano  im- 
posed upon  them  any  longer,  and  firmly  secured  the  house,  clos- 
ing everything.  Shortly  after  nine  o'clock  a  dull  detonation 
was  heard,  and  the  outer  shutter  (sous-le-vent)  was  released 
from  its  bar  fastenings  and  swung  open.  Instantly  the  hot 
blast  entered  and  commenced  its  terrible  rasping  work.  Mile. 
Desiree  was  confident  that  it  was  luminous  or  electric  in  char- 
acter. Refuge  was  sought  under  the  beds,  and  mattresses  were 
hauled  down  to  cover  the  protruding  feet.  At  this  time,  think- 
ing that  the  storm  had  passed,  Mme.  Martin-d'Harcourt  opened 
the  door,  only  to  admit  a  second  and  stronger  blast,  to  which 
she  nearly  succumbed.  All  experienced  extreme  difficulty  in 
breathing,  but  the  sensation  of  choking  was  only  momentary. 
Sulphurous  odors  were  strongly  perceptible.  The  Martin-d'Har- 
court home  was  one  of  the  better  properties  of  Morne  Rouge, 
and  doubtless  owed  its  escape  from  destruction  to  superior  con- 
struction, as  it  stood  sufficiently  exposed  to  the  storm.  Mme. 
Martin-d'Harcourt  succumbed  to  her  wounds  the  day  following 
my  visit." 

AFTER  HIS  RETURN  FROM  MARTINQTJE 

For  a  number  of  days  following  the  destruction  of  Morne 
Rouge  Mr.  Heilprin  was  cut  off  from  communication  with  the 
outer  world,  and  there  were  reports  in  the  papers  that  he  had 
lost  his  life  in  the  catastrophe.  His  relatives  were  in  the  great- 
est anxiety  until,  after  days  of  suspense,  a  brief  cable  despatch 


304  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

from  him  assured  them  of  his  safety.  When  he  returned,  his 
bravery  was  acclaimed  throughout  the  land.  The  impression 
he  produced  upon  those  with  whom  he  spoke  of  his  adventures 
may  be  gathered  from  an  account  in  the  Philadelphia  Press  of 
September  15. 

" '  "Why  some  great  painter  has  not  ascended  Mont  Pelee  to 
place  upon  canvas  the  awe-inspiring  picture  of  a  volcano  in  full 
blast  I  cannot  understand.  With  all  the  opportunities  that  have 
been  offered  it  seems  that  the  artists  have  been  negligent.' 

If  you  have  wondered  what  manner  of  man  is  Professor  An- 
gelo  Heilprin,  the  Philadelphian  who  has  observed  a  violently 
eruptive  volcano  at  closer  quarters  than  any  scientist  known  to 
history,  here  is  a  remark  which  he  made  yesterday,  that  should 
convey  to  the  mind  a  full  appreciation  of  the  motives  which  im- 
pel him  in  his  lifework. 

He  does  not  take  fully  into  consideration  the  fact  that  his 
life  was  in  awful  danger  when,  on  August  30,  he  stood  within 
400  feet  of  the  crater  of  Mont  Pelee,  and,  with  the  eye  of  the 
scientist,  gazed  at  the  terrifying  masses  of  red-hot  cinders  and 
steam  clouds  that  shot  upward  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  miles 
an  hour,  then  to  descend  with  death-dealing  force  on  those  in 
the  villages  below. 

It  was  merely  an  opportunity,  as  he  saw  it,  for  him  to  do 
something  which  would  add  to  the  knowledge  of  his  fellow- 
scientists  throughout  the  world  and  settle  many  disputed  vol- 
canological  problems. 

Most  men  so  near  to  a  terrible  death  would  come  home  to  tell 
how  narrowly  they  had  escaped  and  to  look  to  others  to  sym- 
pathize with  them.  It  is  different  with  Professor  Heilprin. 
Frequently  a  smile  illumines  his  face  as  he  tells  of  the  vivid 
impressions  that  were  made  upon  his  mind  by  the  whistling 
bombs  of  nature  that  sailed  past  him.  He  takes  his  adventure 
as  a  matter  of  course  and  seems  thankful  that  the  magnificent 
but  life-imperiling  sights  that  he  saw  happened  just  as  they 
did. 

'  Don't  you  think  that  your  escape  was  miraculous?'  a  re- 
porter who  interviewed  him  after  his  return  on  Saturday  asked. 

'  Well,  now,  I  would  n't  go  so  strong  as  that,'  the  professor 


AS   INTERVIEW   AFTER   HIS   RETURN"     305 

replied,  '  just  say  that  it  was  a  narrow  escape  —  that  term  is 
quite  expressive  enough  — ^  and  say  that  I  was  rather  fortunate/ 
In  other  words  Professor  Heilprin  went  to  his  danger  dis- 
passionately, stood  it  calmly,  and  then  forgot  what  peril  he  had 
undergone.  He  merely  retained  the  impressions  of  what  took 
place  and  dismissed  all  speculations  of  just  how  many  inches 
he  had  been  from  death." 


VI 

THE    CATASTROPHES    OF   MARTINIQUE   AOT) 

THEIR   BEARING   GIST   THE   PANAMA 

CANAL 

Angelo  Heilprin,  as  may  be  imagined,  was  greatly  inter- 
ested in  the  scientific  bearings  of  the  catastrophes  of  Marti- 
nique, and  his  studies  of  the  volcanic  relations  of  the  Caribbean 
Basin  were  destined  to  have  an  important  influence  on  the  policy 
of  the  United  States  with  regard  to  the  question  of  the  Panama 
Canal  then  before  the  country.  He  came  to  the  following  con- 
clusions concerning  the  geological  character  of  the  Antilles: 

"  Geographers  owe  to  Karl  von  Seebach  and  to  Professor 
Eduard  Suess,  especially  the  latter,  the  first  clear  statement  re- 
garding the  structural  affinities  of  the  islands  composing  the 
Greater  and  Lesser  Antilles,  and  their  relation  to  the  two  con- 
tinents lying  on  either  side  of  them.  In  a  masterly  way  Suess 
has  drawn  a  parallel  between  the  orographic  lines  of  the  Euro- 
pean and  American  Mediterranean  basins,  and  shown  how  the 
features  that  are  dominant  in  the  one  are  made  representative 
in  the  other.  In  both  regions  we  recognize  areas  of  marked 
and  long-existing  weakness  in  the  earth's  crust,  and  in  which 
breakages  have  been  progressively  taking  place  and  still  con- 
tinue. Continental  masses  have  broken  sectionally  into  the.se 
areas,  and  their  fragments  lie  in  part  scattered  about  as  the 
islands  of  archipelagic  seas.  Mountain  chains  have  been  sun- 
dered, disrupted  and  drowned  in  the  forming  oceanic  trough, 
but  their  pinnacles  also  rise  at  times  as  islets  or  ridges  from  the 
surface  of  the  sea.  The  Eurafrica  that  was  at  one  time  a  single 
continent  is  now  Europe  and  Africa;  the  mountains  of  the 
Alps-Apennine  system  that  swept  continuously  into  Africa  and 
Asia  are  now  segmented  and  sectioned,  and  we  know  them  in 
part  as  the  mountains  of  Sicily,  the  isles  of  Greece,  the  Atlas 


MAKTINIQUE   AND   PANAMA   CANAL       307 

Mountains  and  the  Sierra  Konda  of  Spain.  Around  this  vast 
region  of  weakness,  of  bodily  subsidences,  great  ridges  have 
been  towered  up,  and  it  is  these  mountains  which  are  now  in 
part  undergoing  breakage.  Professor  Suess  has  shown,  and  in 
a  way  that  cannot  be  easily  contested,  that  where  these  great 
continental  breakages  are  taking  place  they  are  associated  with 
volcanic  and  seismic  disturbances,  as,  indeed,  one  would  be 
obliged  to  assume  on  any  theory  that  connects  volcanic  outputs 
with  pressure  exerted  by  an  outer  crust  or  shell  upon  a  molten 
interior  lying  a  short  distance  below  it,  or  holds  that  volcanic 
discharges  take  place  along  lines  of  weakness  where  escape  of 
material  from  the  earth's  interior  is  made  easy. 

We  find  in  and  about  the  Mediterranean  basin  the  active  vol- 
canic cones  of  Vesuvius,  Etna,  Stromboli  and  Santorin,  and 
the  extinct,  but  hardly  less  than  modern,  Castellfullit  Moun- 
tains of  Catalonia,  Spain,  the  Euganean  Hills  of  northern 
Italy,  the  Alban  Mountains  of  central  Italy,  the  Tokai  and  Sator 
Mountains  of  the  northern  Hungarian  plain,  and  the  loftier 
summits  of  the  Caucasus,  Elbruz  and  Kasbek,  dominating  a 
basin  that  is  structurally  a  continuance  of  the  Mediterranean. 
In  all  these  cases  it  is  found  that  the  volcanoes,  whether  new  or 
old,  stand  closely  by  the  mountain  range  whose  development  or 
destruction  brought  them  into  existence,  and  usually  they  de- 
fine the  inner  or  concave  side  of  their  trend.  It  was  there  that 
the  greatest  pressure  was  exerted  and  relief  from  pressure 
found. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  Two  SEAS 

It  is  not  now  difficult  to  recognize  a  broad  parallelism  between 
the  western  included  waters  of  the  Atlantic  basin,  the  Carib- 
bean and  Mexican  Seas  —  which  may  properly  be  termed  the 
American  Mediterranean  —  and  the  two  basins  of  the  Euraf- 
rican  Mediterranean.  Both  seas  lie  between  continents,  the 
American  less  directly  so  than  the  European.  In  both  the 
depth  of  water  is  strictly  oceanic  (upward  of  twelve  thou- 
sand feet),  and  both  have  lofty  mountains  associated  with 
them  in  some  part  of  their  periphery.  Again,  both  have 
their  island  groups  or  lines,  and  the  volcanoes  that  lie  close 


308  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

to  their  shores,  whether  on  them  or  off  them.  It  was  a 
brilliant  generalization  in  geology  which  assumed  that  the 
islands  of  the  Antilles  were,  in  the  main,  merely  disrupted 
parts  of  a  once  continuous  land  area,  whose  orographic  relief 
was  constituted  by  one  of  the  main  lines  of  South  American 
mountains ;  that  the  Sierra  Merida  of  Venezuela,  itself  a  direct 
continuation  of  the  eastern  chain,  or  Cordillera  Oriental  of  the 
Andes,  was  formerly  continued  through  the  peninsula  of  Cu- 
mana  into  Trinidad  and  the  Lesser  Antilles,  and  from  there 
projected  into  Porto  Rico,  Hayti,  Cuba  and  Jamaica.  Since 
the  making  of  these  mountains  the  line  has  been  sundered  at  dif- 
ferent points  by  breakages  and  subsidences,  and  elsewhere  so 
'  drowned '  within  itself  as  to  leave  no  trace  of  a  surface  ex- 
istence. The  fate  of  the  mountain  ridge  beyond  the  Blue 
Mountains  of  Jamaica  and  the  Sierra  Maestra  of  Cuba  is  not 
known  with  full  certainty,  but  the  system  may  be  assumed  on 
fairly  secure  grounds  —  as  indeed  the  identity  in  lithologic 
construction  almost  proves  —  to  be  projected  in  drowned  ridges 
to  the  Central  American  coast,  and  thence  continued  into  the 
lofty  masses  of  Honduras  and  Guatemala  as  the  southeastern 
expansion  of  the  true  continental  Cordillera  —  the  chain  that 
virgates  at,  or  near,  Zempoaltepec,  in  the  State  of  Oaxaca,  and 
continues  northwestward  as  the  Sierra  Pacifico  or  Occidental 
of  Mexico. 


PANAMA  AND  COSTA  RICA 

Whatever  may  be  the  exact  relations  of  the  low  line  of 
heights  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  and  of  the  higher  elevations 
of  Costa  Rica,  it  is  certain  that  they  have  little  in  common  either 
with  the  main  Andes  in  the  south,  or  with  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  the  north,  and  seemingly  they  are  only  a  secondary  or 
insular  ramification  which  has  been  forced  up  between  bound- 
ing lines  of  pressure,  or  been  left  standing  as  a  part  of  a  broken 
arm  of  the  Cordillera.  The  Antillean  relations  that  have  been 
sketched  above  assume  as  one  of  their  expressions  the  not  im- 
probable eastward  extension  of  the  ancient  Pacific  border,  per- 
haps even  to  a  position  not  far  removed  from  the  western  con- 
tour of  the  Lesser  Antillean  islands  as  it  exists  to-day,  and 


MARTINIQUE   AND   PANAMA   CANAL       309 

touching  the  southern  confines  of  what  are  now  Cuba,  Hayti, 
Porto  Rico,  etc.  Beyond  this  border  may  have  stretched  east- 
ward or  northeastward,  to  a  long  distance,  a  continental  area 
that  was  largely  continuous  with  South  America.  And  for  any 
facts  that  geology  has  to  show  to  the  contrary,  this  eastward  ex- 
tension of  the  southern  continent  may  well  have  continued,  as 
has  been  argued  by  some  geologists,  quite  into  the  Old  World, 
uniting  at  least  with  Africa ;  for  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  the  southern  basin  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  came  into  ex- 
istence only  at  a  later  day. 

THE  LESSEE  ANTILLES 

The  islands  of  the  Lesser  Antilles  as  we  to-day  recognize  them 
are  constituted  of  two  groups,  an  easterly  and  a  westerly,  which 
in  close  position  form  a  crescentic  line  extending  from  Trinidad 
to  the  eastern  extremity  of  Porto  Rico,  or  across  seventeen  de- 
grees of  latitude.  The  outer  or  Atlantic  islands,  which  occupy 
the  convex  side  of  the  crescent,  are  fundamentally  of  limestone 
or  conglomerate  construction,  joined  to  more  ancient  igneous 
and  metamorphosed  rocks,  and  are  of  a  continental  type,  while 
those  of  the  inner  side  are  volcanic,  and,  counting  from  their 
principal  members,  —  Saba,  St.  Kitts,  Nevis,  St.  Eustatius, 
Redonda,  Montserrat,  Guadeloupe,  Dominica,  Martinique,  St. 
Lucia,  St.  Vincent,  Grenada,  —  about  a  dozen  in  number. 
These  volcanic  islands,  which  all  bear  evidences  of  recent  vol- 
canic activity  and  belong  to  a  period  of  no  great  geological  an- 
tiquity, —  perhaps  nowhere  more  ancient  than  the  Middle 
Tertiary,  —  unquestionably  define  one  of  the  lines  of  greatest 
weakness  in  the  Caribbean  or  Antillean  region,  and  they  stand 
implanted  upon  or  adjoined  to  the  old  continental  basement, 
whose  fragmented  parts  still  appear  in  such  remains  at  St. 
Thomas,  St.  Croix,  Anguilla,  Antigua,  the  eastern  island  of 
Guadeloupe,  and  part  of  Barbados,  —  islands  of  sedimentary 
construction,  and  which  after  their  subsidence  have  in  part  been 
built  up  by  organic  growth  and  volcanic  discharges.  No  more 
extraordinary  series  of  volcanoes  is  to  be  found  anywhere  than 
that  of  this  inner  line  of  islands,  which  have  sometimes  been 
designated  the  Caribbees,  and  nowhere  is  a  volcanic  disposition 


310  ANGELO   HEILPEIK 

to  be  found  that  is  more  beautifully  identified  with  terrestrial 
movements,  whether  of  subsidence  or  breakage.  The  Lesser 
Sunda  Islands,  Japan  and  the  Aleutian  Islands  alone  present 
parallels.  Both  on  the  east  and  the  west,  i.  e.,  on  the  Atlantic 
and  Caribbean  sides,  the  islands  rise  rapidly  from  deep  water  — 
more  rapidly  on  the  inner  or  western  side  —  and  between  each 
two  placed  north  and  south,  although  the  interval  may  not  be 
more  than  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles,  or  even  less,  the  separat- 
ing water  has  in  most  cases  a  depth  of  at  least  three  thousand 
feet,  and  frequently  much  more.  The  islands,  again,  present 
the  extraordinary  peculiarity  of  having  their  highest  summits 
brought  to  approximately  equivalent  heights,  or  at  least  to  levels 
which  have  no  marked  preeminence ;  thus,  Saba,  which  is  hardly 
more  than  a  rock  rising  from  a  fairly  deep  sea,  is  2000  feet 
high ;  Mount  Misery,  on  St.  Kitts,  is  4300  feet ;  the  Soufriere 
of  Montserrat,  3000  feet;  the  Soufriere  of  Guadeloupe,  4070 
feet ;  Diablotin,  on  Dominica,  4740  feet ;  Mont  Pelee,  on  Mar- 
tinique, about  4300  feet ;  the  Soufriere  of  St.  Lucia,  4000  feet ; 
and  the  Soufriere  of  St.  Vincent,  4050  feet.  It  is  not  possible 
to  say  at  this  time  to  what  extent  these  different  volcanic  masses 
may  be  united  with  one  another  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  and 
there  form  a  continuous  volcanic  ridge  with  elevations  of  seven 
thousand  or  eight  thousand  feet  rising  out  from  it.  It  would 
seem  more  likely  that  their  connecting  bond  is  the  continental 
basin,  on  whose  crest,  or  along  whose  fractured  parts,  the  vol- 
canoes have  been  built  up.  This  conception  is  seemingly  more 
in  harmony  with  what  we  know  of  the  linear  disposition  of 
volcanoes  elsewhere,  as,  for  example,  in  the  peninsular  and  insu- 
lar tracts  of  extreme  Asia,  the  Aleutian  Islands,  etc. 


OF  THE  SUBSIDING  ERAS 


In  assuming  in  the  Caribbean  and  Gulf  basins  two  great  sub- 
siding areas,  one  is  not  necessarily  forced  to  the  assumption  that 
their  origin  as  such  dates  from  the  same  period  of  time,  any 
more  than  we  accept  that  the  two  basins  of  the  Mediterranean 
were  necessarily  formed  contemporaneously,  or  that  the  eastern 
basin  is  of  the  same  age  as  the  Black  Sea.  But  they  have  become 
isochronic,  so  far  as  their  present  dynamics  are  concerned.  They 


MAKTINTQUE   AOT)   PANAMA   CANAL       311 

break,  squeeze  and  press,  and  as  a  resultant,  lands  are  folded 
up  and  volcanic  discharges  brought  to  the  surface.  There  are 
no  facts  in  geology  that  are  more  difficult  to  establish  than  those 
that  are  associated  with  the  first  appearance  or  making  of  land- 
masses  and  the  causes  which  have  brought  them  into  existence; 
and  much  room  for  doubt  must  always  be  permitted  in  the  in- 
terpretations of  the  conditions  that  suggest  themselves  in  in- 
quiries of  this  kind.  In  the  case  of  the  Antillean  region,  how- 
ever, it  may  be  assumed  as  fairly  well  established  that  the  singu- 
lar peninsular  extension  of  the  United  States,  the  State  of 
Florida,  is  the  resultant  of  a  lateral  thrust,  with  upfolding, 
brought  about  by  the  subsidence  or  deepening  of  the  Gulf  Basin ; 
and  one  may  accept  with  nearly  equal  certainty  a  like  or  cor- 
relative explanation  for  the  existence  of  the  peninsula  of  Yuca- 
tan. We  may,  indeed,  assume  with  De  Montessus  the  hypothe- 
sis that  the  comparatively  recent  upheaval  of  parts  of  the  Lesser 
Antilles  is  in  itself  merely  the  expression  of  an  upthrust  be- 
tween two  subsiding  basins  —  the  Atlantic  on  one  side  and  the 
Caribbean  on  the  other. 

Were  we  to  seek  for  an  absolutely  homologic  equivalent  of  the 
American  Mediterranean  basins  in  the  Mediterranean  region  of 
Eurafrica,  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  it,  since  the  continen- 
tal relations  of  the  two  regions  are  not  wholly  alike,  nor  are  the 
mountain  parts  similarly  placed.  But  it  is  immaterial  how  the 
individual  parts  are  placed  geographically  or  how  they  are 
interrelated  —  their  geologic  aspect  or  Antlitz  is  fundamentally 
the  same.  M.  Michel  Levy  has  latterly  made  a  comparison  be- 
tween the  two  regions,  and  has  assumed  a  homologic  equivalent 
between  the  Caribbean  and  the  Gulf  basins  on  one  side  and  the 
-<Egean  and  Black  Seas  on  the  other  —  the  Black  and  Gulf  seas 
being  the  included  basins  in  the  two  cases,  the  Dardanelles,  Bos- 
porus and  the  Strait  of  Yucatan  the  connecting  waters,  and  the 
volcanic  Caribbees  and  the  Candian  islands  the  concave  outer 
rim  marking  the  breakage  of  the  main  basins.  This  comparison 
is  interesting  as  it  recognizes  an  existing  homology,  but  it  can 
hardly  replace  the  broader  comparison  which  is  forced  upon  us 
by  the  larger  regions  of  which  the  Euxine-^Egean  is  merely  a 
part.1 

1  Revue  Ge'ne'rale  des  Science,  June,  1902. 


312  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

THE  REGION  OF  WEAKNESS 

The  boundaries  of  the  region  of  weakness  that  is  included 
within  or  touched  by  the  Caribbean-Gulf  basins  may  be  roughly 
drawn  from  the  western  coast  of  Mexico  to  the  Lesser  Antilles, 
or  over  an  east-and-west  extent  of  thirty-six  degrees  of  longi- 
tude, and  form  the  northern  parts  of  South  America  to  Porto 
Rico  and  the  lower  parts  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Practically 
the  whole  of  Central  America  is  included  in  this  region,  whose 
area  may  be  approximately  put  at  twice  that  which  is  repre- 
sented in  the  Mediterranean  region  of  Europe.  Nearly  the 
whole  of  this  tract,  and  much  of  the  region  that  immediately 
adjoins  it,  is  characterized  by  violent  seismic  and  volcanic  dis- 
turbances, and  probably  no  region  of  the  globe,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  that  of  the  Molucca  Seas,  has  been  witness  to  greater 
catastrophic  events  and  to  a  grander  concentration  of  volcanic 
figures  than  this  one.  One  has  only  to  recite  a  few  of  the  more 
salient  events  of  modern  date  in  the  course  of  these  phenomena 
to  properly  punctuate  the  history  of  this  region:  the  eruption 
of  Jorullo,  in  Mexico,  in  1759 ;  the  destruction,  by  earthquake, 
in  1773  of  the  city  of  Guatemala  (Antigua)  ;  the  formation  of 
the  volcano  of  Izalco,  in  Salvador,  in  1793 ;  the  earthquake  of 
Caracas,  in  1812 ;  the  eruption,  in  April,  1812,  of  the  Soufriere 
of  St.  Vincent;  the  catastrophic  eruption  in  1835  of  Coseguina, 
in  Nicaragua  —  one  of  the  most  violent  eruptions  recorded  in 
history;  the  destruction  by  earthquake  of  Cartago,  in  Costa 
Rica,  in  1841;  and  the  rapidly  following  events  of  this  year: 
January  16,  destruction  by  earthquake  of  Chilpancingo,  in 
Mexico;  April  18,  destruction  by  earthquake  of  Quezaltenango 
(and  other  towns),  in  Guatemala;  and  May,  the  eruptions  of 
the  Soufriere  and  Mont  Pelee,  in  St.  Vincent  and  Martinique. 

A  REGION  OF  INSTABILITY 

There  is  perhaps  nothing  that  so  clearly  establishes  the  unity 
of  the  Gulf-Caribbean  region  as  a  region  of  far-reaching  instabil- 
ity as  the  broad  range  of  its  seismic  and  volcanic  phenomena  and 
the  correspondent  relations  which  they  teach.  No  succession  of 
events  could  present  this  fact  more  lucidly  than  the  events  of  the 


MARTINIQUE   AND   PANAMA   CANAL       313 

early  part  of  this  year,  1902,  when  disturbances  of  one  kind  or 
another  were  developed  over  a  linear  area  of  nearly  or  quite  two 
thousand  five  hundred  miles,  extending  from  Colima,  in  Mexico, 
on  the  west,  to  Martinique  on  the  east.  The  areal  distribution  of 
these  occurrences  is,  indeed,  so  vast  that  one  is  almost  prompted 
to  deny  the  existence  of  any  true  relation  binding  them  to- 
gether; but  the  evidence  obtained  from  similarly  concurrent 
events  in  former  periods  of  time  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  that 
the  association,  which  naturally  fastens  itself  upon  the  mind, 
does  in  fact  exist.  The  synchronism  in  the  time  periods  of  the 
eruptions  of  the  Soufriere  of  St.  Vincent  and  Mont  Pelee,  as 
developed  in  their  recent  activities,  is  too  patent  to  permit  of 
any  question  being  raised  as  to  their  relation  to  a  common  dis- 
turbing cause ;  and  perhaps  not  before  has  such  a  close  relation 
been  recorded.  The  cataclysm  of  May  8,  in  Martinique,  was 
preceded  by  one  day  by  the  main  eruption  of  the  Soufriere, 
which,  however,  continued  in  nearly  full  activity  for  twenty-four 
hours  afterwards;  the  Pelee  eruption  of  the  20th  of  the  same 
month  was  preceded,  with  a  nearly  equal  time  interval,  by  a  sec- 
ond eruption  of  the  Soufriere;  while  the  second  death-dealing 
eruption  of  Pelee  on  August  30  was  followed  four  days  later,  and 
after  an  established  period  of  quiescence,  by  what  seems  to  have 
been  the  most  violent  of  all  the  recent  eruptions  of  the  Sou- 
friere, on  September  3-4. 

VARIOUS  SOTJFBIEBES 

A  careful  inquiry  and  examination  made  at  several  of  the 
other  volcanic  islands  lying  in  the  chain  of  the  Lesser  Antilles, 
St.  Lucia,  Dominica,  Guadeloupe,  Montserrat,  and  St.  Kitts, 
all  of  which  have  soufrieres  or  craterlets  emitting  sulphurous  or 
heated  vapors,  establishes  the  interesting  fact  that  their  points 
of  activity  were  not  even  to  the  slightest  degree  influenced  by  the 
eruptions  of  early  May,  the  crateral  bodies  of  water,  whether 
standing  or  boiling,  retaining  their  old  temperatures,  and  giving 
out  neither  more  nor  less  of  vapor.  This  condition  is  made  to 
appear  the  more  surprising  in  the  case  of  the  Soufriere  of  St. 
Lucia,  an  island  that  stands  half-way  between  Martinique  and 
St.  Vincent.  The  island  thus  appears  side-tracked,  so  far  as  the 


314  ANGELO   HEILPRI^ 

existence  of  any  connecting  fissure  may  be  postulated.  It  should 
be  noted,  however,  that  the  position  of  the  St.  Lucia  Soufriere  is 
not  longitudinally  concurrent  with  the  positions  of  Pelee  and 
the  Souf riere  of  St.  Vincent,  lying  considerably  to  the  eastward. 
And  it  is  remarkable,  or  at  least  noteworthy,  that  just  west- 
ward of  this  island,  seven  to  ten  miles  beyond  the  coast,  marked 
oceanic  disturbances,  taking  place  at  the  time  of  the  great  land 
eruptions,  were  observed,  and  were  considered  to  point  to  true 
eruptions  having  their  origin  on  the  sea-bottom. 

As  in  1812,  the  great  May,  1902,  eruption  of  the  Soufriere 
was  preceded  by  violent  seismic  disturbances  in  the  northern 
part  of  South  America,  particularly  accentuated  in  Colombia 
and  Venezuela,  and  in  closer  chronologic  harmony  by  the  great 
earthquake  which  on  April  18  destroyed  the  city  of  Quezalte- 
nango,  in  Guatemala  —  seemingly  the  most  destructive  earth- 
quake in  the  western  hemisphere  since  the  one  which  in  1812 
wrecked  Caracas.  So  close,  indeed,  is  this  association,  and  so 
intimately  correlated  appear  to  be  the  volcanic  and  seismic  phe- 
nomena of  the  vast  Caribbean  region,  that  Professor  Milne  has 
ventured  the  suggestion  that  it  was  this  earthquake,  or  rather  its 
prophetic  force,  which  brought  about  the  eruption  of  Pelee. 
However  possible  or  impossible  it  may  be  to  prove  the  correct- 
ness of  this  view,  it  is  certainly  very  interesting  and  suggestive.1 

FALLACIOUS  BELIEF  IN  FUTURE  SAFETY 

As  regards  the  intensity  of  the  volcanic  and  seismic  conditions 
of  the  Gulf-Caribbean  region,  it  has  frequently  been  asserted 
by  geologists  and  others  that  it  is  rapidly  on  the  decline,  and  that 
we  could  look  to  a  comparatively  near  period  when  a  full  or 
nearly  full  condition  of  stability  would  be  established.  That 
there  has  been  a  marked  diminution  in  these  phenomena  since 
a  prehistoric  period,  when  the  volcanoes  were  first  formed,  or 
for  a  long  period  after  their  formation,  does  not,  it  seems  to 

1  A  violent  earthquake  with  sharp  detonations  was  noted  at  Carupano, 
on  the  Venezuelan  coast,  on  the  night  of  August  30,  at  about  nine  o'clock. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  almost  coincidentally  with  the  construction  of 
the  volcanic  cone  in  the  Lake  of  Ilopango,  in  Salvador,  there  were  violent 
seismic  disturbances,  with  a  southwest  to  northeast  movement,  in  the 
Vuelta-Abajo  district  of  Cuba  (January  22-23,  1880). 


MAKTINIQUE   AND   PANAMA   CANAL       315 

me,  admit  of  doubt;  but  I  fail  to  find  the  evidence  that  points 
to  any  recent  decrease  of  power  or  to  that  near  future  of 
quiet  repose  which  is  assumed  to  follow  dormancy.  In  various 
papers  discussing  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  interoceanic 
canal  routes,  Nicaragua  and  Panama,  I  have  sought  to  point 
out  the  fallacy  of  the  notion  that  a  half  century  or  more  in  the 
history  of  an  active  or  semi-active  volcano  serves  as  a  proper 
guide  to  the  elucidation  of  the  possibilities  of  such  volcano  or 
that  it  is  necessarily  in  any  way  a  measure  of  the  volcano's  po- 
tential energy.  It  seemed  to  me  far  more  probable,  seeing  that 
we  had  in  the  1835  eruption  of  Coseguina  one  of  the  greatest 
paroxysms  of  the  earth's  history,  that  the  volcanic  and  seismic 
phenomena  of  at  least  a  part  of  the  Caribbean  region  gave  indi- 
cations of  an  increase  rather  than  of  a  decrease  of  power,  and 
I  pointed  out  the  bearing  of  this  condition  on  the  problem  of 
canal  construction.  Since  the  appearance  of  these  papers,  the 
world  has  been  startled  by  the  destruction  of  Chilpancingo, 
on  January  16;  the  destruction  of  Quezaltenango,  on  April 
18;  the  eruption  of  the  Soufriere  on  May  7;  and  the  death- 
dealing  eruptions  (besides  other  eruptions  of  almost  equal 
intensity,  May  20,  June  6,  July  9)  of  Pelee  on  May  8  and 
August  30.  These,  together  with  the  long-continued  eruptions 
of  Colima,  in  Mexico,  now  extending  through  a  period  of  ten 
years,  appear  to  me  to  be  part  of  one  and  the  same  general  dis- 
turbance in  a  localized,  even  though  vast,  area  of  the  earth's 
crust.  As  to  the  future,  and  what  particularly  concerns  the 
forces  of  the  Lesser  Antilles,  it  is  difficult  to  postulate;  but 
there  does  not  appear  to  me  any  good  reason  for  assuming  that 
we  are  about  to  enter  upon  a  condition  of  peace.  Eather  should 
I  believe  that  we  may  be  facing  a  period  of  long-continued,  even 
if  interrupted,  activity;  and  that  we  may  even  be  nearing  a 
period  whose  distinguishing  characteristics  may  be  cataclysmic. 
The  Caribbean  basin  is  recognizably  one  of  breakage,  and  its 
phenomena  can  easily  be  those  that  result  from  this  condition." 


lirCE   OF   HIS   VlEWS    ON   THE    SENATE    DEBATES 

The  influence  of  Professor  Heilprin's  scientific  authority 
upon  the  debates  in  the  Senate  concerning  the  proposed  inter- 


316  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

oceanic  canal  was  thus  set  forth  in  an  address  by  Mr.  Louis  E. 
Levy,  in  commemoration  of  his  friend,  delivered  before  the 
Franklin  Institute,  Philadelphia,  September  18, 1907 : 

"  The  respective  merits  and  difficulties  of  these  two  routes  had 
been  debated  for  years  by  experienced  engineers,  by  learned 
geologists,  by  journalists  and  by  statesmen,  and  when  the  choice 
was  finally  to  be  made  by  act  of  Congress,  the  Senate  wavered 
in  its  decision,  many  of  its  members  remaining  undecided  in 
their  opinion.  At  this  juncture  Heilprin,  then  investigating  the 
volcanic  conditions  attending  the  catastrophe  at  Mont  Pelee,  an- 
nounced his  conclusions  through  the  Philadelphia  Press,  In  a 
telegram  to  that  journal  he  said :  l  My  studies  of  what  has  hap- 
pened here  throw  added  light  on  the  Isthmian  Canal  question. 
The  catastrophism  here  is  without  parallel.  Its  relation  with 
conditions  at  St.  Vincent  establishes  the  certainty  of  a  long  vol- 
canic circuit,  whose  existence  should  dispose  of  Nicaragua  as  a 
canal  route.'  His  telegram  closed  with  the  statement  that 
'  The  facts  all  prove  the  broad  reach  of  volcanic  force,  and  that 
reliance  for  the  protection  of  a  canal  running  through  a  volcanic 
country  like  Nicaragua,  on  the  localization  of  volcanic  force,  its 
assumed  dormancy,  or  the  resistibility  of  the  canal  to  its  destruc- 
tive action,  is  absurd/ 

The  effect  of  this  announcement  was  decisive.  It  brought  con- 
viction to  the  minds  of  Senators  who  had  remained  unconvinced 
by  the  arguments  presented  by  Senator  Hanna  and  other  leading 
advocates  of  the  Panama  route,  and  left  the  Nicaragua  project 
but  a  small  minority  of  supporters,  headed  by  Senator  Morgan 
of  Alabama.  But  it  was  not  only  in  Congress  that  Heilprin's 
authoritative  announcement  brought  conclusion  to  this  much 
vexed  question.  His  investigations  influenced  public  opinion  on 
the  subject  throughout  the  country  and  settled  it  permanently  in 
favor  of  the  Panama  route." 


THE  TOWER  OF  PELEE 

Rfproihired  from  n  Pmntinfi  hi/  Angrlo  lleilprin 
•<l  lo  /lir.  American  Museum  of  Xalimil  History,  Nfw  York 


VII 
THE    TOWER   OF   PELEE 

The  development  of  the  giant  obelisk  of  rock  known  as  the 
"  Tower  of  Pelee  "  was  a  phenomenon  which  exercised  a  pecul- 
iar fascination  upon  Professor  Heilprin.  He  revisited  Mar- 
tinique in  order  to  study  all  aspects  of  the  phenomenon.  In  a 
letter  to  the  Nation,  dated  August  20,  1903,  he  wrote: 

"  Not  quite  a  month  after  the  first  anniversary  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Saint-Pierre,  I  again  set  foot  on  Martinique  soil.  A  tor- 
rid sun  was  beating  down  upon  the  prairie-like  savane  of  Fort- 
de-France,  and  the  tall  and  richly  umbered  royal  palms  that 
shadow  the  statue  of  Josephine  had  already  long  begun  to  show 
the  passing  of  the  rainy  season.  This  is  the  hot  side  of  the 
island,  and  if  a  temperature  of  86  or  87  degrees  carries  with  it 
no  particular  terrors,  and  is  not  uncommonly  high  for  a  region 
that  lies  only  four  hundred  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco, 
it  is  still  something  that  warns,  and  compels  consideration  where 
an  unusually  high  degree  of  humidity  pervades  the  atmosphere. 
There  were  not  many  people  about,  and  the  city  of  12,000  inhab- 
itants showed  its  usual  appearance  of  monotonous  decay.  Fort- 
de-France  is  perhaps  as  intensely  uninteresting  as  Saint-Pierre 
was  the  reverse,  and  even  now,  when  it  has  entirely  replaced  its 
fairer  sister  as  the  centre  of  population  of  the  island,  it  does 
nothing  to  relieve  itself  of  the  air  of  weariness  which  is  its  chief 
characteristic.  I  found  no  change  in  the  doings  of  its  people 
since  September.  Newspaper  politics  were,  as  heretofore,  run- 
ning high,  and  the  editorial  columns  of  L'Opinion  and  La  Colo- 
nie  were  waging  the  old  '  war  of  races.'  The  volcano  was  still 
a  part  of  the  hourly  food,  and  its  workings  were  officially  chron- 
icled almost  daily;  but  there  seemed  to  be  few  who  were  more 
than  passively  interested  in  the  extraordinary  structure  that  it 


318  AlvTGELO   HEILPRIN 

had  developed  —  the  gigantic  obelisk  of  rock  which  transfixes  the 
crater-cone,  and,  like  a  veritable  Tower  of  Babel,  towers  over  the 
summit  of  the  mountain  to  a  height  of  800  feet  and  more.  And, 
incredible  though  it  may  appear,  there  are  still  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  the  inhabitants  who  to  this  day  have  not  visited 
Saint-Pierre. 

The  silent  city  remains  much  as  it  was  at  the  time  of  my  last 
visit,  nine  months  before.  A  little  more  ash  has  accumulated 
here  and  there,  and  some  of  it  has  been  taken  off  elsewhere ;  but 
the  ruins  are  the  same  battered,  crumbling  walls,  unchanged  save 
that  they  have  gained  in  color  through  the  washing  off  of  the 
ash-mud  that  plastered  and  cloaked  their  vertical  sides.  In  a 
few  places  excavations  were  being  made  to  recover  '  treasure ' 
or  to  locate  sites,  but  the  prowlers  among  the  dead  were  few,  and 
what  was  recovered  was  in  most  cases  insignificant.  I  turned 
over  some  rubble-masses  beneath  which  '  caked '  and  burnt 
papers  were  projecting,  and  found  that  I  was  dealing  with  a 
lesson  in  geology,  and,  strangely  enough,  with  one  that  taught 
of  volcanoes  and  volcanic  phenomena.  Several  pages  of  manu- 
script, possibly  escaped  from  the  Lycee  or  the  Communal  Col- 
lege, covered  with  teachings  of  Vesuvius,  Cotopaxi,  and  Etna 
(and  of  Pelee  ?).  It  may  be  that  those  papers  were  dictated  by 
the  impending  storm  of  Pelee,  but  who  can  now  tell  ?  The  frag- 
ment of  one  of  the  few  books  recovered  from  Saint-Pierre  — 
whose  precious  brown  pages  I  owe  to  a  friend  —  deals  likewise 
with  volcanic  phenomena.  It  is  the  '  L'Enfant  du  Vesuve/ 
supplemented  with  a  very  full  account  of  the  destruction  of 
Pompeii,  and  with  a  carefully  rendered  translation  of  both  of 
Pliny's  letters. 

One  significant  change  has  come  over  Saint-Pierre.  It  is  no 
longer  an  absolute  desert,  for  little  colonies  of  ants  and  other 
insects  are  inhabiting  the  ruins,  and  the  land-snail  has  come 
to  live  with  them.  Green  creepers  and  many  plants  with  bright 
flowers  here  and  there  hang  about  the  battered  masonry,  and 
from  some  of  the  old  gardens  rise  up  stocks  of  the  chou  caraibien 
and  the  banana.  And  even  the  few  trees  that  have  been  left 
standing  on  the  surrounding  heights,  and  thought  to  be  dead, 
have  sprouted  out  new  leaves,  and  give  a  new  sunshine  to  the 
landscape.  Well  up  on  the  volcanic  slope,  beyond  the  Roxelane, 


THE    TOWER   OF   PELEE  319 

and  quite  to  the  Riviere  des  Peres,  these  signs  of  returning  vege- 
tation are  apparent,  and  on  one  side  of  the  Roxelane  itself  every- 
thing is  green.  But,  after  all,  it  is  more  the  immediate  fore- 
ground that  gives  these  signs  of  resuscitation,  for,  farther  be- 
yond, and  below  the  hanging  volcanic  cloud,  the  grays  are  as 
gray  as  ever,  and  the  valley  of  the  Riviere  Blanche,  choked  with 
the  immense  amount  of  debris  that  has  been  thrown  into  it,  is 
white  like  snow  with  the  new  ash  that  is  periodically  being  swept 
over  its  course. 

At  Morne  Rouge,  which  fell  in  the  storm  of  August  30,  not 
a  house  remained  inhabited.  The  beautiful  church  under  whose 
partially  lifted  roof  good  Pere  Mary  had  sought  refuge  for 
nearly  his  last  hours,  still  stands  with  its  foot  in  the  ash.  My 
attendant  climbed  into  the  belfry  and  tolled  the  bells  that  hung 
uninjured  from  the  posts.  It  was  the  voice  in  the  wilderness, 
for  there  were  none  to  listen  to  it  but  ourselves.  Perhaps  far 
away  on  the  hillsides,  where  specks  of  cottages  appeared  in  the 
surrounding  green,  some  may  have  recognized  the  beautiful 
resonant  tones. 

The  exquisite  woodland  that,  previous  to  August  30,  bordered 
most  of  the  road  between  here  and  Ajoupa-Bouillon,  stood  out 
now  as  ragged  tree-trunks,  spectres  in  the  destroyed  landscape, 
with  naked  arms  and  upturned  roots,  begging,  as  it  were,  from 
the  new  sunlight  that  surrounded  them.  Here  and  there  the 
eye  fell  upon  the  returning  fronds  of  the  tree-fern  and  clumps 
of  bamboo,  on  the  melastome  and  broad-leaved  heliconia;  but 
they  were  merely  visions  of  what  had  been  before. 

On  June  13,  in  company  with  one  of  the  officers  of  the  French 
Scientific  Commission,  I  made  my  fourth  ascent  of  Pelee.  The 
passing  night  promised  everything.  A  few  high  clouds  hovered 
about  the  blue  and  receding  mornes  that  stretched  off  toward 
Carbet,  but  over  the  volcano  itself  there  waa  nothing,  and  the 
great  obelisk,  its  base  fiery  red  with  the  molten  lava  that  was 
being  poured  into  it,  stood  out  in  bold  relief  against  the  green- 
blue  western  sky.  "We  left  our  quarters  early,  so  as  to  gain 
upon  the  clouds  that  viciously  gather  about  the  summit;  but 
the  clouds  had  preceded  us,  and  already  at  the  breakfast  hour, 
by  which  time  we  had  reached  the  former  summit,  everything 
was  wrapt  in  cloud  and  mist,  and  little  was  visible  beyond  our- 


320  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

selves.  We  succeeded  in  steering  a  course  across  what  had  be- 
fore been  the  basin  of  the  Lac  des  Palmistes,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  stood  upon  the  edge  of  the  great  crater.  Everything 
was  gray  within  —  not  silent,  however,  for  avalanches  of  rock 
were  being  precipitated  and  tumbled  about  in  ruthless  manner, 
and  an  occasional  ominous  roar  told  that  the  spirit  of  the 
mountain  had  not  entirely  departed.  For  the  better  part  of  six 
hours  we  vainly  strove  to  penetrate  the  sea  of  cloud  and  fog 
that  hung  ahead  of  us.  Each  coming  gust  seemed  to  give  us 
the  chance  for  which  we  were  waiting,  but  the  rising  crater- 
vapors  kept  the  basin  full,  and  even  under  a  clear  sky  they 
allowed  only  ' memories  of  a  landscape'  to  escape.  Although 
in  no  way  unbearably  hot,  I  found  the  crater  rim  uncomfortably 
warm  and  humid;  it  seemed  to  me  more  so  than  on  my  earlier 
visits.  The  actual  temperature  was  only  85  degrees,  however. 

Shortly  before  two  o'clock,  the  opportunity  for  which  we  had 
so  impatiently  waited  seemed  finally  to  have  arrived.  Clouds 
and  vapors  died  down  to  one  side,  and  the  great  tower,  its 
crown  hanging  at  a  dizzy  height  above,  began  to  unfold.  Piece 
by  piece  was  added  to  it  —  purple,  brown,  and  gray  —  until 
at  last  it  stood  abreast  of  us  virtually  uncovered  from  base  to 
summit.  The  spectacle  was  one  of  overwhelming  grandeur,  and 
one  can  hardly  conceive  of  its  terrorizing  aspect.  Nature's 
monument  dedicated  to  the  30,000  dead  who  lay  in  the  silent 
city  below,  it  rises  up  a  huge  monolith,  830  feet  above  the  newly 
constructed  summit  of  the  volcano,  and  5,020  feet  above  the 
Caribbean  surface.  Nothing  of  this  kind  had  ever  been  known 
to  science  before,  and  I  felt  —  although  not  the  first  in  the  field 
to  observe  it  —  that  my  footsteps  had  been  guided  to  an  un- 
known world.  None  of  the  grandest  scenes  of  nature  which 
I  had  before  seen  —  the  Matterhorn,  the  Domes  of  the  Yo- 
semite,  the  colossus  of  Popocatepetl  rising  above  the  shoulders 
of  Ixtaccihuatl,  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  —  seemed  to 
impress  me  as  this  one  did ;  and  I  am  certain,  at  this  distance 
from  the  field  of  observation,  that  none  was  more  sublime. 
More  restful  scenes  there  certainly  are. 

In  its  geological  conception,  the  '  Tower  of  Pelee '  means 
the  extrusion  vertically  of  a  mass  of  solid  lava,  which  in  its 
nonfluent  condition  has  been  forced  out  in  this  way  by  the 


THE    TOWER   OF   PELEE  321 

volcanic  stress  reacting  upon  its  base.  The  entire  tower,  300- 
350  feet  thick  where  its  base  is  implanted,  and  with  a  height 
twice  that  of  the  Washington  Monument  in  Washington,  is 
still  being  pushed  up  bodily,  and  at  a  rate  that  is  all  but  in- 
credible. During  four  days  of  my  residence  at  Vive  the  rise, 
as  determined  by  the  French  Scientific  Commission,  was  twenty- 
one  feet;  and  the  rate  of  ascent  was  far  greater  still  in  the 
preceding  month.  On  the  side  where  the  great  obelisk  has 
pressed  hardest  on  the  encasing  rock,  the  surface  is  smoothed, 
almost  polished,  and  shows  parallel  lines  of  grooving.  The 
other  sides  are  slaggy,  and  bear  evidence,  especially  on  the  side 
directed  to  Saint  Pierre,  of  recurrent  periods  or  episodes  of 
eruption.  These  have  not  yet  ceased. 

The  great  volcano  of  Martinique  is  now  'plugged*  or 
1  corked.'  How  long  it  will  remain  in  this  condition,  or  how, 
soon  it  may  pass  through  another  paroxysm,  the  future  alone 
can  determine.  For  the  present  the  mountain  presents  alike  to 
the  tourist  and  the  scientist  an  object  of  supreme  interest." 

THE  SHATTEEED  OBELISK 

On  this  and  on  subsequent  occasions  Mr.  Heilprin  took  many 
photographic  views  of  the  obelisk,  and  after  his  last  visit  to 
Martinique,  in  1906,  he  published  in  the  National  Geographic 
Magazine  a  paper  on  "  The  Shattered  Obelisk  of  Mont  Pelee," 
in  which  he  furnished  some  additional  theories  to  account  for 
the  origin  and  construction  of  the  tower.  He  said : 

"  Of  the  remarkable  phenomena  which  enter  into  the  history 
of  the  recent  activities  of  Mont  Pelee,  and  of  the  activities  of 
volcanic  mountains  generally,  few  have  attracted  more  wide- 
spread attention  than  the  extrusion,  through  the  Pelean  apex, 
of  a  core  of  rock  which,  at  the  time  of  its  greatest  development, 
attained  a  height  of  upward  of  a  thousand  feet.  This  block  of 
rock,  which  thus  rose  the  better  part  of  twice  the  height  of 
the  Washington  Monument,  in  the  city  of  Washington,  and  had 
a  thickness  at  its  base  of  from  300  to  500  feet,  was  a  funda- 
mental part  of  the  history  of  the  volcano  for  upward  of  a  year, 
not  improbably  already  existing  in  a  minor  or  concealed  form 


322  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

at  tlie  time  of  the  destruction  of  Saint-Pierre,  and  continuing 
into  the  period  of  August  to  September  of  the  year  following 
(1903).  To-day  nearly  all  that  was  of  it  lies  in  shattered  frag- 
ments, covering  up  much  of  what  before  was  the  ancient  crater 
basin  of  the  Etang  Sec  and  of  the  domed  mass  which  has  been 
constructed  nearly  centrally  over  the  floor  of  this  basin.  The 
fragments  of  disruption  occur  in  many  sizes,  from  boulders  of 
two  to  three  feet  diameter  or  less  to  others  having  the  more 
respectable  measure  of  ten,  twenty,  or  even  thirty  feet.  Their 
numbers  make  up  a  veritable  wilderness  of  debris,  from  among 
which  f umarolic  vents  are  still  at  intervals  forcing  vapor,  and  in 
which  at  favored  spots  the  eye  detects  small  growths  of  fern 
and  other  lowly  types  of  vegetation. 

The  generally  active  condition  of  the  volcano,  whether  in  its 
wilder  or  gentler  mood,  had  until  this  year  virtually  barred  all 
approach  to  this  great  rock  monolith,  and  thus  made  its  study 
a  matter  of  inferential  deduction  rather  than  of  actual  obser- 
vation. A  long  period  of  quiescence  in  the  activities  of  Pelee 
has  now  made  access  to  its  central  parts  possible,  and  the  riddle 
of  the  mountain  is  no  longer  kept  to  itself.  Taking  advantage 
of  this  condition  of  the  volcano,  the  writer  undertook  a  fourth 
journey  to  the  island  of  Martinique  in  the  month  of  February 
of  this  year,  and,  as  he  believes,  successfully  accomplished  the 
object  of  his  visit 

We  arrived  at  Fort-de-France  on  the  21st  of  the  month,  five 
days  after  a  fairly  severe  seismic  movement,  when  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  capital  city  were  still  seeking  refuge  from  pos- 
sible earthquake  visitations  in  short  flights  to  the  campagne 
and  when  Pelee  was  again  coming  in  for  a  fair  share  of  (wholly 
undeserved)  excoriation.  Despite  cable  reports  to  the  contrary, 
the  volcano  was  wholly  passive  —  except  for  quiet  emissions  of 
summit  steam  —  on  the  16th,  when  Castries,  on  the  island  of 
Saint  Lucia,  suffered  much,  and  Fort-de-France  considerably 
less.  A  record  of  35  to  40  houses  more  or  less  injured  hardly 
has  significance  from  the  earthquake  point  of  view,  but  it  was 
sufficient  at  this  time  to  point  to  graver  possibilities  or  even 
probabilities  in  the  near  future,  and  hence  le  volcan  and  Us 
tremblements  de  terre  were  an  almost  fixed  topic  of  conversa- 
tion with  everybody.  I  made  my  accustomed  pilgrimage  to 


THE   TOWEK   OF   PELEE  323 

Saint-Pierre,  now  a  disappearing  ruin  in  an  encroaching  jungle, 
and  on  the  second  day  following  made  my  way  over  to  the 
northeastern  side  of  the  island  and  established  myself  as  here- 
tofore, under  the  hospitable  roof  of  the  Usine  Vive.  On  Feb- 
ruary 27,  starting  from  the  Habitation  Leyritz,  when  the 
tree-toads  were  still  croaking  and  when  Nature  shrouded  the 
landscape  in  a  veil  of  darkness,  M.  des  Grottes  and  myself,  with 
two  assisting  carriers,  bore  off  to  the  easy  arete  which  steadily 
moves  up  to  the  summit  of  the  volcano.  A  nasty  rain,  which 
came  and  went  with  intervals,  dogged  our  trail  for  the  better 
part  of  an  hour  and  added  little  comfort  to  the  little  that  goes 
with  these  trips.  Once  on  the  open  slope  of  the  volcano,  how- 
ever, everything  went  well,  and  my  mount,  the  Arabian 
( Mocha '  did  its  share  of  the  journey  in  an  unusually  pleasant 
way,  showing  only  scant  signs  of  fatigue  up  to  the  point  where 
conditions  made  it  desirable  to  leave  the  animals.  This  is  now 
considerably  more  than  half  way  up  the  mountain. 

We  gained  the  summit,  in  a  not  particularly  satisfying 
drizzle,  shortly  before  eight  o'clock,  only  to  find  that  little  was 
to  be  seen  beyond.  The  crater  basin  was  full  of  shifting  clouds 
and  vapors,  and  only  in  rarest  snatches  could  we  pick  up 
through  thinning  areas  the  form  of  the  massive  dome  and  of  its 
covering  debris.  At  the  spot  where  we  reached  the  crater-wall, 
by  some  of  the  good  people  of  the  region  facetiously  called 
the  salon,  there  were  marked  evidences  of  recent  slipping  and 
subsidence,  and  for  some  distance  back  of  the  border  new 
separating  lines  told  plainly  of  the  reaches  that  before  very 
long  were  to  be  added  to  the  crateral  hollow.  A  shift  in  the 
wind  brought  the  greater  part  of  the  dome  momentarily  into 
view,  and  also  cleared  up  what  remains  of  the  old  Morne  de  la 
Croix.  Its  flank,  a  short  distance  from  the  brink,  carries  the 
new  cross  which  in  great  state  was  planted  on  the  14th  of 
September  last.  On  this  day  Pelee  was  in  gala  form,  for  not 
less  than  six  hundred  inhabitants  of  the  island  formed  part 
of  the  procession  that  followed  the  cross  to  the  summit,  moving 
up  in  a  long  continuous  line  that  to  some  may  have  been 
reminiscent  of  the  Chilkoot  trail.  A  minor  wooden  cross  has 
also  been  erected  near  the  eastern  border  of  what  was  formerly 
the  basin  of  the  Lac  des  Palmistes. 


324:  ANGELO   HEILPRIST 

Following  the  rim  of  the  crater  along  its  northern  face,  or 
in  the  direction  of  the  Petit  Bonhomme,  we  found  a  spot  where 
it  seemed  that  a  descent  might  be  made  over  the  very  sharp 
knife-edge,  and  where,  indeed,  an  earlier  descent  had  already 
been  made  by  my  associate,  together  with  two  companions, 
MM.  Salet  and  Beaufranc.  A  very  stiff  wind  was  unfortu- 
nately blowing  over  this  crest,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  that 
its  persistence  would  thwart  our  effort  to  gain  the  rim.  My 
own  affairs  were  not  particularly  encouraging  either,  for  I  had 
but  one  good  foot,  and  dragged  another  as  a  reminiscence  of  a 
mishap  on  board  the  steamer  of  our  voyage.  Once  over  the 
rim,  however,  we  were  on  fairly  easy  ground,  and  the  scramble 
to  the  bottom  was  quickly  made.  Here  we  were  immediately 
brought  into  contact  with  the  parts  of  the  obelisk,  which  were 
lying  about  everywhere,  almost  completely  cloaking  the  body 
of  the  dome  itself  and  measurably  filling  in  the  horseshoe- 
shaped  area  of  the  old  crater  basin.  Close  to  the  point  of  our 
descent  the  depth  of  the  crateral  cavity  could  hardly  have 
reached  a  hundred  feet.  Westward  of  our  position  it  was  still 
less,  while  directly  under  the  old  Morne  de  la  Croix  it  may 
have  more  nearly  measured  150  to  200  feet.  The  dense  vapors 
(in  the  absence  of  an  aneroid)  did  not  permit  of  any  accurate 
determinations  of  depth  at  this  time.  The  width  of  the  hol- 
low at  its  base  had  been  reduced  to  hardly  more  than  a  rock- 
space  in  some  places;  elsewhere  it  widened  out  to  a  number 
of  yards,  and  from  its  boulder-strewn  surface  steam  was  issu- 
ing in  scattered  jets. 

Having  secured  the  necessary  footing,  we  almost  immediately 
began  the  attack  upon  the  dome  itself,  a  sufficiently  easy  un- 
dertaking in  the  present  condition  of  the  volcano  and  requiring 
no  care  beyond  that  which  attaches  to  the  wise  caution  of  look- 
ing where  you  walk.  Loose  boulders  would  be  sent  from  time 
to  time  flying  down  the  slope,  giving  out  that  peculiar  sound, 
as  of  breaking  glass  and  china-ware,  which  had  already  been 
noted  by  those  who  had  made  the  early  ascents  to  the  crater 
rim,  and  as  far  back  as  the  close  of  May,  1902.  This  '  vitre- 
ous '  or  clinkery  sound  had  been  attributed  by  some  —  among 
whom  I  must  class  myself  —  to  a  possible  vesicular  or  obsidian- 
like  structure  in  the  falling  rock  masses;  but  manifestly  the 


THE    TOWEK   OF   PELEE  325 

condition  was  independent  of  this  structure,  for  we  found  the 
rock  to  be  everywhere  of  compact  form,  destitute  of  gaseous 
cavities,  and  nowhere  even  approximating  obsidian  in  aspect 
or  composition.  Petrographically  it  is  a  light-gray,  fine-grained 
hypersthene-andesite,  of  almost  holocrystalline  texture  and 
differing  but  little  from  some  of  the  older  rocks  of  the  vol- 
cano. It  seemingly  belongs  to  type  iv  of  Lacroix's  classifica- 
tion of  the  ejected  products  of  Pelee  (quartzitic  andesites), 
although  some  give  a  faint  indication  of  loose  aggregation  (ap- 
proximating the  rocks  of  type  m?),  perhaps  resulting  from 
weathering,  or,  what  seems  to  me  more  likely,  the  action  upon 
the  surface  of  superheated  steam  or  other  gases.  As  before 
remarked,  we  found  no  scoriaceous,  clinkery,  or  vesicular  masses 
of  any  kind,  although  it  might  be  going  too  far  to  say  that 
such  do  not  exist  buried  up  in  the  wilderness  of  material.  At 
two  points  on  the  dome  we  came  upon  the  extruded  smoothened 
surfaces  of  the  "  ribbing  "  which  forms  part  of  the  true  struc- 
ture of  the  dome  itself,  and  found  them  to  have  virtually  the 
same  lithological  characters  as  the  boulder  masses  beneath  which 
they  were  in  greater  part  covered. 

Having  gained  a  point  on  the  dome  which,  at  times  of  clear- 
ing vapors,  well  overlooked  the  wall  of  the  Morne  de  la  Croix, 
and  beyond  which  the  further  ascent  is  complicated  by  project- 
ing pinnacles  and  a  disagreeably  steep  gradient,  we  drew  the 
line  of  our  journey  and  turned  our  steps  downward.  Some- 
what more  caution  was  necessary  in  this  descent  than  in  the 
ascent,  but  without  mishap  the  bottom  of  the  rainure  was  found, 
and  a  slow,  steady  pull  brought  us  again  to  the  rim  of  the 
crater-wall.  The  wind  was  still  blowing  a  semi-gale  in  this 
quarter  and  clouds  hung  heavily  over  the  vertical  summit  of 
the  volcano.  Now  and  then  the  basal  wreck  of  the  great  obe- 
lisk protruded  its  tooth-like  form  through  the  shifting  vapors, 
giving  to  the  mountain  an  aspect  of  savage  ruggedness. 

When  before  this  visit  I  last  stood  on  the  crater  rim  the 
great  obelisk  of  rock,  like  a  veritable  Tower  of  Babel,  still  rose 
840  feet,  a  sheer  precipice,  above  the  summit  of  the  dome 
which  to-day  bears  merely  a  serrated  crest.  At  that  time,  in 
the  middle  of  1903,  the  fires  of  the  volcano  were  still  burning, 
and  steam  and  sulphur  vapors  were  being  puffed  in  great  clouds 


326  ANGELO   HEILPRIIT 

through  the  mass  of  the  dome  itself,  and  through  the  zone  of 
contact  that  united  the  dome  with  the  gray  and  silent  rock  that 
rose  out  from  it  like  a  giant  plug  or  cork.  At  that  time,  and 
from  that  time  nearly  to  this,  the  geologist  was  still  in  doubt 
as  to  the  precise  characteristics  of  this  singular  volcanic  ex- 
crescence—  unique  apparently  in  our  world,  but  not  unlikely 
duplicated  in  some  of  the  tall  objects,  sending  nearly  straight 
shadows,  which  appear  in  some  of  the  large  crateral  pits  of 
the  moon  —  but  to-day  we  at  least  know  what  was  its  con- 
structural  rock  material,  even  if  a  considerable  doubt  still  at- 
taches to  the  precise  method  of  its  formation. 

The  view  that  is  seemingly  most  generally  held  by  geologists 
as  to  the  origin  and  construction  of  the  Pelee  tower  is  that 
which  has  been  advanced,  and  so  ably  elaborated  by  Professor 
Lacroix,  the  chief  of  the  scientific  commission  sent  out  by  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  of  Paris  to  investigate  the  happenings  on 
the  island  of  Martinique.  This  view  is,  in  its  simplest  terms, 
that  the  giant  rock  mass  represented  a  rapidly  and  recently 
cooled  highly  acidic  lava,  whose  tension  and  viscosity  were  such 
as  to  permit  of  solidification  at  or  about  the  time  of  extrusion ; 
it  belonged  to  the  present  period  of  eruption,  and  thus  took  the 
place  of  the  free  flows  of  lava  which  are  ordinarily  an  accom- 
paniment of  the  normal  type  of  volcanic  eruption.  The  pres- 
sure exerted  on  the  ascending  magma  by  the  solidified  dome 
which  is  thought  to  have  closed  over  the  central  orifice  is  con- 
sidered by  Lacroix  to  have  been  an  important  factor  in  the 
production  of  solidification,  even  if  not  its  absolute  determinant. 

While  seemingly  simple  in  its  explanation,  there  are  yet 
many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  acceptance  of  Lacroix's 
hypothesis,  and  some  of  these  I  have  pointed  out,  in  advance 
of  the  publication  of  the  monumental  La  Montague  Pelee  et  ses 
Eruptions,  in  my  l  Tower  of  Pelee.'  A  few  of  these,  to  which 
others  are  added,  are  here  enumerated: 

1.  The  hypothesis  of  M.  Lacroix  compels  a  belief  in  the 
rapidity  of  the  cooling  and  solidification  of  large  lava  masses 
which  is  seemingly  at  variance  with  all  knowledge  that  we 
possess  regarding  the  behavior  of  rock  masses  in  fusion.  The 
Pelee  obelisk,  although  rifted  much  in  the  manner  of  the  joint- 
ing of  other  rocks,  was  virtually  solid  to  the  core,  and  none  of 


THE    TOWER   OF   PELEE  327, 

its  decapitations  disclosed  moving  fluid  lava  in  the  interior. 
We  are  thus  forced  to  believe  that  a  full  cooling  and  solidifica- 
tion of  the  constructing  lava  mass  had  in  an  almost  incredibly 
short  space  of  time  extended  completely  through  the  substance 
of  the  extruding  part.  At  the  time  of  its  final  disruption,  in 
the  early  autumn  of  1903,  it  is  true  that  the  basal  scar  was 
described  as  being  a  vast  glowing  brazier;  but  I  should  say 
that  this  condition  was  brought  about  by  the  forcing  into  the 
base  of  the  monolith  of  some  of  the  same  lava  which  elsewhere 
was  oozing  out,  and  constructing,  or  helping  to  form,  the  sup- 
porting dome.  Indeed,  it  may  well  be  that  the  destruction  of 
the  obelisk  was  brought  about  largely  by  an  '  eating '  into  the 
mass  of  burning  lava. 

2.  The  hypothesis  involves  the  assumption  that  the  tower 
or  obelisk  was  one  of  the  later  constructions  associated  with 
the  awakening  of  the  volcano,  having  been  preceded  in  time  by 
the  construction  of  the  dome,  and  its  rise  is  dated  back  only 
to  the  middle  of  October  (or  November)  of  the  year  1902. 
But,  as  has  already  been  intimated,  there  are  grounds  for 
believing  that  it  already  existed  within  the  chimney  of  the 
volcano  as  early  as  the  fatal  8th  of  May,  and  its  presence  there 
as  an  obstructing  (  plug '  may  well  have  been  responsible  for 
the  force  and  downward  stroke  of  the  destroying  cloud  that 
annihilated  Saint-Pierre.    There  can  hardly  be  a  question  that 
the  scraggy  and  apparently  cindery  mass  which  I  described  in 
my  earlier  reports  as  defining  a  wall  in  the  crater,  and  which 
is  so  well  illustrated  by  Mr.   George  Varian  in  the  paper 
(McClure's  Magazine,  August,  1902)  which  details  our  ascent 
of  the  mountain  on  June  1,  1902,  was  the  identical  rock.    While 
at  Morne-Rouge  on  the  day  following  (June  2),  Pere  Mary 
assured  me  that  three  distinct  tooth-like  structures  were  plainly 
visible  from  the  belfry  of  his  cathedral,  '  looming  up '  above 
the  crater's  rim. 

3.  Professor  Lacroix  has  pointed  out,  what  seems  to  me  to 
be  in  opposition  to  his  own  views,  that  the  volcano  had  for 
several  weeks  maintained  a  condition  of  parallel   (opposed) 
activity  at  the  summit:   the  construction  of  a  fluidal  dome  and 
the  simultaneous  erection  of  a  rigid  spine  or  tower.     It  would 
be  difficult  to  explain  this  divergent  condition  on  any  theory 


328  ANGELO   HEILPRItf 

of  almost  instantaneous  cooling  of  outwelling  lavas.  One  could 
hardly  expect  to  find  an  outwelling  mass  so  behaving  as  to 
lend  itself  to  the  formation,  at  or  near  the  same  place  and 
under  very  nearly  similar  conditions,  of  two  structures  which 
were  so  largely  dissimilar  in  habit  as  the  fluidal  dome  and  the 
rigid  spine.  If  the  substance  of  the  dome  was  able  to  main- 
tain its  fluidity,  it  might  reasonably  be  argued  that  the  mass 
of  the  obelisk  would  have  been  able  to  do  the  same.  On  the 
other  hand  the  divergent  condition  is  entirely  consonant  with 
any  theory  that  holds  that  the  extruded  rock  was  an  ancient 
rock  core  that  had  been  bodily  lifted  from  its  moorings,  and 
that  it  bore  no  relation  in  its  making  to  the  newer  activities 
of  Pelee.  This  is  the  view  that  I  myself  hold  and  is  that 
iwhich  I  have  enunciated  elsewhere.  M.  Lacroix  has  in  many 
places  pointed  out  that  the  mechanics  of  the  two  structures 
were  independent  of  one  another. 

4.  On  the  theory  of  a  rapidly  solidifying  lava,  one  would 
naturally  expect  to  find  the  surface  of  the  cooling  body  giving 
out  vapors  from  its  inner  parts,  but  the  Pelee  obelisk,  except, 
perhaps,  along  lines  of  rifting  or  near  its  base,  never,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  exhibited  this  peculiarity,  the  tower  of  rock 
looming  up  at  all  times  grimly  cold  and  dry,  and  with  much 
the  appearance  of  steam  having  acted  upon  its  surface. 

To  the  objections  that  have  here  been  stated  others  less  direct 
might  also  be  urged.  My  recent  journey  has,  perhaps,  not 
contributed  much  to  the  elucidation  of  the  subject,  except  in 
so  far  as  negatively  it  has  failed  to  determine,  in  an  examina- 
tion of  much  rock  material,  any  evidences  of  recent  solidifica- 
tion of  the  same.  To  this  extent,  therefore,  it  tends  to  support 
my  contention,  that  the  obelisk  of  Pelee  was  an  ancient  volcanic 
plug  which  bore  no  relation  in  its  formation  to  the  newer  phase 
of  eruption  of  the  volcano,  and  was  lifted  bodily,  as  the  result 
of  extreme  volcanic  stress,  in  the  manner  of  the  great  block 
of  granite  (and  domite?)  of  the  Puy  Chopine,  in  the 
lAuvergne." 


VIII 
VOLCANIC  AND   SEISMIC   DISTURBANCES 

The  question  of  the  inter-relations  of  volcanic  and  seismic 
disturbances  was  discussed  by  Professor  Heilprin  in  a  volume 
which  appeared,  posthumously,  in  1908  (The  Eruption  of 
Pelee:  A  Summary  and  Discussion  of  the  Phenomena  and  Their 
Sequels.  Printed  for  the  Geographical  Society  of  Philadelphia 
by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.).  In  it  the  author  said: 

"  One  of  the  most  significant  facts  associated  with  the  An- 
tillean  upheavals  of  the  year  1902  is  the  extent  of  territory 
over  which  earthquakes  and  volcanic  disturbances  of  a  single 
or  identical  period  of  activity  manifested  themselves.  From 
southern  Mexico  in  the  west  to  the  Lesser  Antilles  in  the  east 
we  have  an  interval  in  a  direct  line  of  not  less  than  1800- 
2000  miles,  and  along  or  near  this  line  disturbances  have  been 
registered  in  Costa  Bica,  Nicaragua,  Salvador,  Guatemala,  and 
Mexico.  The  remarkable  crowding  of  the  phenomena  is  such 
that  one  cannot  well  resist  the  conclusion  that  they  are  all 
inter-related  or  hold  a  mutual  relation  to  a  single  inciting  cause, 
and  are  not  coincidental  in  their  occurrence.  The  more  salient 
facts  connected  with  these  disturbances  are  briefly: 

The  destructive  earthquake  of  Quetzaltenango,  in  Guatemala, 
on  April  17—18,  1902,  at  almost  precisely  the  time  when  Pelee 
first  seriously  manifested  its  new  activity;  the  renewal  of 
activity,  immediately  after  the  earthquake,  and  at  a  distance 
of  nearly  200  miles,  of  Izalco,  in  Salvador,  a  volcano  whose 
energies  had  calmed  down  for  a  number  of  years,  but  which 
was  in  full  activity  on  May  10,  two  days  after  the  Pelee  cata- 
clysm ;  the  eruption  on  May  7,  of  the  Soufriere,  in  St.  Vincent; 
the  cataclysm  on  May  8,  of  Pelee,  followed,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Soufriere,  by  violent  disturbances  extending  into  Septem- 


330  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

her  or  October;  the  opening  up  of  the  Santiago,  or  western, 
crater  of  Masaya,  in  Nicaragua,  about  the  middle  of  July, 
1902,  with  a  well  pronounced  activity  continuing  into  July, 
1904;  the  eruption  on  October  24  (continuing  to  Nov.  15)  of 
Santa  Maria,  in  Guatemala,  a  volcano  situated  close  to  the 
seismic  field  of  Quetzaltenango,  and  for  which  there  is  no  re- 
corded previous  eruption.  The  relation  of  these  facts,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  so  intimate  as  to  force  the  conclusion  that  they  are 
directly  connected  with  each  other,  and  one  need  hardly  dis- 
cuss the  probability  of  another  interpretation  being  found  for 
them;  and  it  was  not  without  reason,  therefore,  that  Milne 
early  advanced  the  view  that  the  April  earthquake  of  Quetzal- 
tenango was  the  real  initiator  of  the  series  of  dual  disturbances 
that  followed  rapidly  upon  it.  Whether  or  not  one  should  ex- 
tend the  relation  of  disturbances  so  as  to  include  the  earlier 
earthquake  which  in  January  of  the  same  year  wrecked  a  large 
part  of  the  town  of  Chilpancingo,  in  southern  Mexico,  and  the 
reawakening  of  Colima  in  February  and  March  of  the  year 
following  (1903),  does  not  materially  affect  the  problem,  as  the 
distance  separating  Martinique  from  Quetzaltenango  is  already 
so  great  as  fully  to  satisfy  the  conditions  of  the  broad  deduc- 
tion which  it  is  my  aim  here  to  present.  Owing  to  the  fact 
that  these  disturbances  were  developed  in  what  might  be  termed 
a  single  region,  and  in  a  region  that  is  not  familiar  to  us  in 
the  sense  that  parts  of  the  world  nearer  to  our  homes  are,  the 
geologist  is  not  apt  to  be  impressed  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
distance  that  separated  them;  it  is,  therefore,  proper  to  state 
that  on  the  map  of  the  continent  of  North  America  it  would  be 
measured  by  the  line  uniting  Galveston  with  Cape  Churchill, 
on  Hudson  Bay,  or  that  uniting  San  Francisco  with  the  vol- 
cano of  Iliamna,  on  Cook  Inlet,  Alaska,  or  with  the  volcanic 
islands  of  the  Aleutian  group. 

The  realization  of  the  important  fact  that  inter-related  vol- 
canic and  seismic  disturbances  may  manifest  their  acutest 
phases  of  activity  over  an  area  of  the  earth's  surface  that  is 
measured  on  a  line  of  1800—2000  miles  naturally  opens  up  a 
broad  perspective  of  the  possibilities  in  the  inner  workings  of 
our  planet,  at  the  same  time  that  it  directs  inquiry  to  the 
general  subject  of  volcanic  and  seismic  inter-relationships. 


VOLCANIC   AND   SEISMIC   DISTURBANCES     331 

I  have  elsewhere  (Paper  read  before  the  International  Con- 
gress of  Geologists,  held  in  the  city  of  Mexico,  in  September, 
1906,  and  paper  published  in  Science,  Nov.  2,  1906)  used  the 
facts,  as  they  appear  to  me,  of  the  Antillean  disturbances,  to- 
gether with!  others  of  a  like  kind  drawn  from  regions  remote 
from  the  Antilles,  as  evidence  tending  to  prove  that  the  incit- 
ing force  of  such  disturbances  may  be  (and  has  been)  regional 
rather  than  local  in  character  and  that  the  generally  accepted 
views  of  geologists  that  the  far-reaching  seismic  jars  of  the 
earth  —  the  so-called  tectonic  earthquakes  —  are  independent 
of  volcanic  association,  might  not  unreasonably  be  thought  to 
rest  on  doubtful  premises.  At  any  rate,  one  may  well  question 
whether  in  the  case  of  some  of  the  seemingly  most  distinctive 
tectonic  disturbances  there  is  not  an  absolute  association  bind- 
ing them  with  some  form  of  volcanic  activity  registered  upon 
possibly  a  distant  quarter  of  the  globe.  My  own  general  con- 
clusions as  I  have  stated  them  are  as  follows: 

1.  A  broad  inter-relationship  exists  between  volcanic  and 
seismic  phenomena  generally; 

2.  Inter-related  manifestations  of  volcanic  and  seismic  ac- 
tivity may  extend  over  distances,  as  measured  on  the  surface 
of  the  globe,  of  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  miles; 

3.  '  Tectonic '  earthquakes,  so-called,  are  only  doubtfully  to 
be  distinguished  from  earthquakes  of  volcanic  association,  or 
those  that  have  been  brought  about  as  the  result  of  deep-seated 
strain ; 

4.  The  slipping,  upheaval  and  torsion  of  terranes  as  ac- 
companiments of  earthquake  action  are  the  resultants  of  im- 
pacts or  jars  already  delivered  to  the  earth's  crust,  and  are  not 
the  cause  of  such  jars; 

5.  Earthquake  and  volcanic  disturbances  seem  to  be  the  ex- 
pression of  one  common  interior  telluric  strain  or  condition, 
and  this  condition  may  in  some  or  many  cases  be  clearly  as- 
sociated with  a  pronounced  magnetic  or  electromagnetic  quality 
of  the  planet; 

6.  There  would  appear  to  be  a  marked  synchronism  or  close 
following  of  major  disturbances,  whether  volcanic  or  seismic, 
at  distantly  removed  points  of  the  earth's  surface  at  different 
periods. 


332  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

For  the  facts  which  have  forced  these  conclusions  upon  me 
and  inclined  me  to  an  acceptance  of  the  Naumann-Humboldt 
theory  of  volcanic  and  seismic  relationships  in  preference  to 
the  more  modern  view  of  the  general  independence  of  the  two 
classes  of  phenomena,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  article  pub- 
lished in  Science  for  Nov.  2,  1906. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  and  one  seemingly  confirmative  of 
the  views  that  I  have  here  expressed,  that  the  four  great  earth- 
quakes of  the  most  recent  time  have  been  found  to  be  syn- 
chronously related  to  volcanic  activity:  the  September,  1905, 
earthquake  of  Southern  Italy  (Monteleone),  associated  with  a 
recrudescence  of  activity  on  the  part  of  Vesuvius  and  Strom- 
boli  (Mercalli:  Comptes  Rendus,  Jan.  17,  1907);  San  Fran- 
cisco, with  the  upthrow  of  Bogoslov  Island  No.  3 ;  Valparaiso 
(Chile),  with  the  outbreak  of  Chilian  (Steffen,  Zeitschrift 
Gesell.  fur  Erdkunde,  Berlin,  1906,  p.  638);  and  Kingston 
(Jamaica),  with  outbreaks  of  the  Central  American  volcanoes 
(as  reported  in  the  logs  of  the  Pacific  Mail  steamships).  The 
theory  of  the  probable  inter-relationship  of  earthquake  and  vol- 
canic phenomena  has  been  made  the  subject  of  many  important 
papers,  from  the  time  of  the  earliest  geologists  to  the  present 
day,  but  it  nowhere  receives  more  lucid  exposition  than  in  a 
paper  (now,  as  it  seems,  generally  overlooked)  published  by 
Charles  Darwin  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Geological  Society 
of  London  (2d  series,  vol.  V,  1840).  Among  the  more  notable 
synchronous  events  there  recorded  is  the  simultaneous  breaking 
out  into  activity,  on  Jan.  20,  1835 — shortly  preceding  the 
great  earthquake  disturbances  on  the  west  coast  of  South 
America  —  of  the  volcanoes  of  Osaruo,  in  Chile,  and  Coseguina, 
in  Nicaragua,  separated  by  an  interval  of  upwards  of  3000 
miles.  In  my  own  paper  already  referred  to  I  cite  among 
other  synchronous  happenings  in  seismo-volcanic  activity  the 
cataclysm  of  Kotlugia  (Katla),  in  Iceland,  on  the  day,  Nov.  1, 
1755,  when  Lisbon  was  destroyed  by  earthquake,  and  the  com- 
bined catastrophic  eruptions  of  Skaptar  Jokull,  Hecla,  and 
Reyk  janes  occurring  coincidently  with  the  great  Calabrian 
earthquake  of  1783.  The  distance  separating  Iceland  from 
Lisbon  is  about  1800  miles — therefore,  less  than  the  distance 
that  separates  Martinique  from  Quetzaltenango,  in  Guatemala 


VOLCANIC   AND   SEISMIC   DISTURBANCES     333 

(An  exhaustive  paper,  dealing  largely  with  earthquake  and 
volcanic  relationships  has  latterly  been  published  by  Professor 
T.  J.  J.  See  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Philosophical 
Society,  Oct-Dec.,  1906.  The  author's  conclusions  regard- 
ing tectonic  earthquakes  are  largely  identical  with  those  which! 
I  have  here  advanced.)  " 


IX 

A   JOUKNEY   TO    BKITISH   GUIANA 

Mr.  Heilprin's  last  undertaking  was  a  journey  into  the  in- 
terior of  British  Guiana,  in  1906,  the  following  account  of 
which  appeared  in  the  "  Bulletin  of  the  American  Geographical 
Society"  for  September  of  that  year,  under  the  heading  of 
"  Impressions  of  a  Naturalist  in  British  Guiana  " : 

"  When  in  1825  Charles  Waterton  published  his  delightful 
Wanderings  in  South  America  he  gave  to  the  world  the  first 
picture  of  what  Anthony  Trollope  has  called  the  '  true  and 
actual  Utopia  of  the  Caribbean  Seas,  namely,  British  Guiana.' 
In  it  we  have  presented  one  of  the  most  fascinating  introduc- 
tions to  a  region  of  charm  and  beauty  —  an  impression  of 
nature  which  is  scintillant  with  the  glories  of  the  field  and 
forest,  that  mocks,  however  rudely,  the  labor  of  the  systematist 
and  cabinet,  that  invites  to  hidden  secrets  in  a  largely  unknown 
world.  The  Wanderings  in  South  America  has  doubtless  been 
to  many  one  of  the  earliest  books  of  travel  to  inspire,  and 
it  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  impelling  force  which 
through  many  years  has  held  up  the  vision  of  a  journey  to  the 
great  primeval  forest  of  the  south.  Therefore,  to  its  author 
nominatim  I  surrender  '  a  certain  portion  of  the  honours '  that 
may  come  to  me  from  my  recent  and  exceedingly  modest  jour- 
ney ;  for,  as  he  says,  '  As  Ulysses  sent  Achilles  to  Troy,  so  I 
sent  him  to  Guiana.' 

If  Surinam,  the  close  neighbour  and  parent  of  British  Guiana, 
can  be  properly  likened,  as  has  been  done  by  Palgrave,  to  the 
Biblical  paradise  simply  because  it  is  '  a  very  pleasant  place ' 
and  not  over-progressive,  so,  for  like  reasons,  the  comparison 
might  be  extended  to  cover  the  British  colony,  in  which  the 


A   JOURNEY    TO   BRITISH   GUIANA         335 

moulding  of  man  and  his  methods  sees  before  it  a  long  future. 
The  similarity,  if  it  does  not  extend  much  beyond  the  two  con- 
ditions which  it  specifies,  has  other  elements  that  may  be  thought 
to  justify  a  comparison.  A  free,  untrammelled  Nature  tends 
toward  paradisism,  and  there  are  few  regions  of  the  earth's 
surface  where  the  encroaches  of  man  have  done  less  to  modify 
wild  nature,  or  to  take  from  it  its  majestic  solemnity  and 
grandeur,  than  the  wilds  that  stretch  in  one  almost  unbroken 
sweep  from  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco  to  the  lower  basin  of 
the  Amazon.  It  is  here  that  the  great  primeval  forest,  the 
almost  pathless  solitude  that  has  made  classic  the  descriptive 
writings  of  Humboldt,  Von  Martius,  Schomburgk,  Bates,  and 
Wallace,  still  gathers  in  its  darkness  from  a  region  of  almost 
no  trespass,  and  unfolds  itself  in  a  magnificence  that  is  per- 
haps not  to  be  matched  elsewhere.  The  continuous  forest  of 
the  Amazon-Orinoco  basin  covers  not  less  than  2,000,000  square 
miles,  and,  it  may  be,  considerably  more,  and  in  its  region  of 
vast  trackless  woods  there  is  hardly  a  gateway  to  the  interior, 
barely  a  road  or  path,  and  virtually  no  line  of  travel-com- 
munication except  where  nature  has  set  those  water-highways 
which,  even  as  secondary  rivers,  pour  out  their  waters  in  vol- 
umes exceeding  those  of  the  Volga,  the  Danube,  the  Rhine, 
or  even  the  Mississippi. 

Most  travellers  receive  their  first  impressions  of  British 
Guiana  on  their  arrival  at  the  capital  city,  Georgetown  (more 
commonly  designated  from  the  country  in  which  it  is  situated, 
Demerara),  but  before  this,  and  for  many  miles  out  to  sea,  he 
will  have  noted  a  characteristic  of  the  land  in  the  yellow-brown 
waters  that  lie  outside,  the  sediment  that  rolls  out  in  floods 
or  is  gathered  in  from  the  discharge  waters  of  the  Orinoco. 
The  Amazon  seems  to  have  little  part  in  this  discoloration ;  for, 
if  my  information  is  correct,  much  of  the  off-shore  of  French 
Guiana  and  the  land  lying  still  farther  to  the  eastward  are 
bathed  by  a  clear  sea.  Back  of  the  fringe  of  muddy  water  the 
eye  follows  the  low  contour  of  a  bordering  grove  of  mangrove, 
and  beyond  it  in  some  places,  or  replacing  it  elsewhere,  the  glass 
may  resolve  a  somewhat  loftier  growth  of  willow-like  bushes, 
or  even  trees,  the  courida  (Avicennia  nitida).  In  the  distance, 
less  lofty  than  the  occasional  chimney  that  tells  where  the  sugar- 


336  ANGELO   HEILPKIN" 

cane  is  being  grown,  or  where  it  was  cultivated  until  competition 
with  the  sugar-beet  broke  the  back  of  the  most  important,  albeit 
steadily  failing,  industry  of  the  colony,  are  a  few  specimens  of 
the  royal  and  cabbage  palms  (Oreodoxa  regia,  Oreodoxa  olera- 
ceo,},  and  the  landscape  is  virtually  complete.  There  is  not  a 
rise  in  the  land  that  even  remotely  suggests  a  hill,  and  it  is  in 
faith  only  that  the  mind  constructs  the  landscape  of  lofty 
mountains  in  the  far  interior,  bearing  the  land,  a  space  of 
some  tnree-quarters  of  a  mile  between  the  growths  on  either  side 
invites  to  where  the  Demerara  Eiver  opens  out  to  sea,  and  on 
the  river,  a  short  distance  up  the  right  bank,  lies  Georgetown. 

The  capital  city  does  not  particularly  concern  the  naturalist, 
except  for  its  botanic  garden  and  experiment  station,  its  charm- 
ing avenues  of  trees,  and  the  open  water-ways,  the  so-called 
'  canals '  of  the  city,  which  are  magnificently  grown  with  the 
Victoria  regia  and  the  equally  beautiful  large-flowered  water- 
lily  and  lotus.  I  had  heard  much  of  these  open  canals,  but 
rarely  a  word  regarding  their  attractiveness.  Residents  of  the 
city  are  habituated  to  this  display  of  floral  wealth,  but  to  the 
newcomer,  to  the  one  who  knows  these  glories  of  vegetation 
only  from  the  isolated  specimens  in  botanic  gardens,  the  spec- 
tacle is  a  ravishing  one,  however  closely  it  may  be  associated 
with  the  prosaic  topic  of  city  drainage. 

From  the  moment  that  the  traveller  has  set  foot  on  George- 
town soil  he  has  made  friends  with  that  lovable  and  seemingly 
always  cheerful  laniine  bird,  the  kiskadee  (Pitangus  violaceus). 
Qu'est-ce-que-dit?  comes  from  the  tree-tops  overhead,  from 
orchards  and  gardens,  and  from  your  hotel  window-sill. 
Throughout  all  the  hours  of  day  and  through  many  of  the 
hours  of  semi-day  this  sprightly  interlocutor  plies  his  little 
inquiry,  not  waiting  nor  caring  for  a  reply.  In  that  part  of 
town  which  insensibly  removes  to  country,  a  more  direct  call 
upon  the  stranger  may  be  made  in  the  quizzical  and  surpris- 
ingly human  '  Who-are-you  ?  Who-who-are-you  ? '  of  the  na- 
tive whippoorwill  —  a  voice  which,  when  once  recognized,  brings 
back  pleasant  memories  of  lands  far  away. 

Georgetown  is  by  no  means  a  featureless  city,  and  those  who 
assume  that  decaying  colonies  must  necessarily  have  their  repre- 
sentation in  centres  ranking  equally  with  them  in  decay  will 


A   JOUENEY    TO   BEITISH   GUIANA         337 

regard  with  more  than  respect  the  stately  Government  Build- 
ings, the  Law  Courts,  the  market-house,  the  Club,  the  numer- 
ous large  commercial  houses  —  where,  repeating  a  characteristic 
of  many  business-houses  the  world  over,  everything  may  be 
had  from  a  needle  to  a  church-steeple  —  and,  above  all,  the 
inviting  tropical  houses  that  lie  back  in  cool  and  shaded  gardens. 
An  effective  system  of  trolley-cars  ministers  to  the  wants  of  a 
very  large  part  of  the  60,000  inhabitants,  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  whom  are  blacks,  and  a  smaller  number  East  Indian 
coolies.  The  whites,  who  constitute  about  three-fourths  of  the 
entire  white  population  of  the  colony,  number  less  than  six 
thousand.  Georgetown  is  in  outer  dress  more  attractive  than 
either  Bridgetown,  in  Barbados,  or  Port-of-Spain,  Trinidad, 
although  from  the  peculiarities  of  its  geographical  location  it 
can  lay  no  claim  to  scenery  as  part  of  its  composition.  Al- 
though my  visit  was  timed  for  the  months  of  March  and  April, 
and  therefore  for  the  period  when  the  sun  was  in  one  of  its 
summer  positions  and  virtually  overhead,  the  highest  shade 
temperature  that  I  saw  recorded  was  only  87.5°,  between  mid- 
day and  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  At  this  distance,  therefore, 
of  only  little  more  than  four  hundred  miles  from  the  equator 
the  extreme  temperature  was  below  that  which  I  had  observed 
on  the  Yukon  Kiver,  on  or  near  the  Arctic  Circle.  The  even- 
ings were  invariably  delightful,  and  their  refreshing  quality 
made  man  a  willing  servant  to  work  on  the  morrow. 

THE  EXUBERANCE  OF  ANIMAL  LIFE 

In  the  low  savannah  country  that  for  miles  extends  backwards 
from  the  sea-border,  and  frequently  assumes  the  garb  of  flooded 
meadows  in  which  houses  appear  like  floating  arks  and  where 
man  displays  his  amphibious  instincts  in  a  way  to  remind  one 
that  roadways  are  not  always  the  determinants  of  direction  in 
travel,  the  naturalist  is  brought  face  to  face  with  that  exuber- 
ance in  animal  life  which  is  the  day-dream  of  tropical  nature. 
Hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  white  ibis  fleck  the  meadows 
with  their  slender  forms.  With  them  are  spoonbills,  herons, 
and  bitterns,  and  myriads  of  the  little  reed-bird  (Xanthosomus 
icterocephalus}  —  the  whole  a  bird  paradise.  The  graceful 


338  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

little  spur-wing  or  jagana  (Parr a  jagana)  is  everywhere  busy 
in  the  grass-copings  and  sedges,  apparently  unmindful  of  the 
watching  eyes  of  hawks  and  harriers,  which  appear  to  be  in 
every  bush  and  tree.  They  plume  themselves  along  the  drive- 
ways, or  sit  gravely  on  branch  or  fence-post,  taking  no  notice 
of  the  passer-by,  no  more  than  the  passer-by  takes  notice  of 
them.  This  quality  of  unconcern  is  charming  in  its  relation 
to  association,  and  gives  an  opportunity  to  the  observer  to  make 
his  investigations  at  close  range.  A  large-sized  manatee  was 
disporting  in  a  pool  immediately  back  of  the  railroad  station 
at  Belfield,  where  we  were  waiting  for  a  passing  train,  and  it, 
too,  seemed  to  be  wholly  indifferent  to  the  people  who  happened 
to  be  near-by. 

The  abundance  in  which  the  birds  were  about  naturally  made 
one  eager  for  the  chance  to  see  the  rarer  types.  While  speed- 
ing over  the  savannahs  my  eye  caught  sight  of  three  individuals 
of  the  great  American  adjutant  or  jabiru  (Mycteria  Americana), 
1  negro-kops '  as  they  are  here  styled,  so  peacefully  meditating 
that  one  might  have  thought  them  posed  by  a  photographer.  The 
naked  branches  of  the  lofty  ceiba  or  silk-cotton  tree  everywhere 
hang  with  the  purse-nests  of  the  Icterinoe,  twenty  to  fifty,  or 
more,  in  number,  all  gently  swaying  in  the  breeze  that  catches 
their  lofty  position.  Some  of  these  nests,  notably  of  the  bunya- 
birds  (Ostinops  decumanus,  0.  viridis)  measure  at  times  five 
feet  or  more  in  length,  and  are  marvels  in  delicacy  of  construc- 
tion. Storm  and  rain  may  come,  but  the  little  ones  still  swing 
in  placid  security  in  their  dizzy  heights  above.  The  thinking 
naturalist,  despite  all  theories  of  birds'  nests,  must  continue  to 
ponder  over  the  evolutionary  process  that  shaped  the  destinies 
of  these  remarkable  constructions. 

At  Buxton,  a  small  hamlet  a  few  miles  from  Georgetown, 
where  I  was  for  some  days  serving  a  most  pleasant  guestship, 
there  was  nailed  over  the  passageway  between  the  verandah 
and  the  interior  sitting-room  of  my  host's  house  the  skin  of  a 
large  water-kamudi  or  anaconda.  It  measured  20  feet  7  inches 
in  length,  and  opened  out  to  something  more  than  two  feet. 
It  was  thus  a  large  animal,  and  I  naturally  assumed  that  it  was 
a  trophy  obtained  from  the  chase  in  some  deep  interior  part 
of  the  colony.  But  my  host  informed  me  that  it  met  its  fate 


A   JOURNEY   TO   BRITISH   GUIANA         339 

as  a  transgressor  at  a  distance  of  only  150  yards  from  the 
house,  and  that  hardly  more  than  a  twelvemonth  ago.  The 
largest  authenticated  specimen  of  the  anaconda  coming  from 
the  colony  appears  to  have  measured  about  29  feet  in  length. 

On  my  first  walk  out  from  my  host's  house,  a  late  afternoon 
family  stroll,  we  chanced  upon  a  specimen  of  the  crab-dog 
(Procyon  cancrivorus} ,  which  was  being  pursued  in  true  rac- 
coon-hunt fashion  by  a  horde  of  negro  boys  and  scatterlings. 
Poor  creature,  its  broken  back  did  not  permit  it  to  make  either 
a  vigorous  defence  or  a  graceful  flight.  On  the  morning  follow- 
ing a  living  specimen  of  the  crab-fox  (Canis  cancrivoms) ,  its 
feet  securely  tied  together,  was  deposited  ( on  sale '  on  the 
porch  steps.  These  instances  of  close  neighborship  will  show 
how  delightfully  situated  the  zoologist  may  be  who  chances  to 
visit  this  region.  He  will  not  lack  for  material,  although  it 
can  well  be  that  at  times  this  material  may  be  found  too  close 
at  hand.  Returning  early  of  an  evening  from  a  tennis-party, 
driving  homeward,  we  found  the  road  momentarily  blocked  by 
a  not  entirely  ignoble  specimen  of  alligator,  whose  domain  ex- 
tended to  the  waters  of  a  bordering  canal.  It  was  one  of 
numerous  denizens  of  the  water-ways  of  the  region;  but  of 
such  the  inhabitants  take  little  count,  and  allow  them  to  work 
out  their  own  salvation.  The  alligator,  as  distinguished  from 
the  less  common  cayman,  rarely  attains  a  length,  as  I  under- 
stand, much  exceeding  seven  or  eight  feet. 

THE  MIGHTY  RIVERS 

Lest  the  geographer  become  too  thoroughly  impressed  with 
the  notion  that  the  great  rivers  of  the  globe  are  only  those  that 
serve  as  trade-carriers  or  have  played  a  familiar  part  in  child- 
hood's study  of  geography,  it  may  be  noted  that  in  this  distant 
forest-land  are  rolling  waters  that  would  shame  the  rivers  of 
Europe  —  that  would  put  to  a  long  test  even  the  'Eather  of 
American  Waters.'  The  great  sweep  of  the  Corentyn  and 
Essequibo,  rivers  that  60  miles  or  more  above  their  estuarine 
mouths  measure  from  three  to  four  miles  in  width,  and  which 
for  yet  a  further  hundred  miles  may  still  carry  two  miles,  is 
an  object-lesson  in  geography  which  impresses  with  more  than 


340  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

ordinary  force.  Let  the  traveller  stand  at  Bartica  on  the  Es- 
sequibo, where  the  waters  of  the  Mazaruni  and  Cuyuni  are 
mingled  in  with  those  of  his  own  stream,  and  he  will  no  longer 
wonder  why  this  region  is  sometimes  called  in  one  of  its  Indian 
tongues  l  the  land  of  many  waters.'  From  far  off,  like  unto 
the  picture  which  the  master  of  '  Thanatopsis '  has  given  of 
the  Oregon,  roll  in  the  waters  of  these  mighty  tributaries, 
threading  the  mazes  of  the  dark  forest  that  falls  to  their  banks, 
and  leaping  in  silver  sheets  of  foam  through  the  scarred  rocks 
that  here  and  there  interpose  as  cataract-walls.  Nearly  all  of 
the  major  streams  of  British  Guiana  are  now  freely  and  regu- 
larly navigated  by  small  steamboats  and  launches,  but  obstruct- 
ing cataracts  do  not  in  most  cases  permit  of  continuous  naviga- 
tion for  more  than  70—125  miles.  Above  the  reach  of  tumbling 
waters,  nearly  all  of  which  are  passed  downward  by  paddle- 
craft,  middle-course  navigation  has  been  established  in  some 
cases,  so  that  without  difficulty  the  traveller  may  penetrate  a 
far  way  into  the  interior.  The  Corentyn,  Berbice,  Demerara, 
Essequibo  (with  some  of  its  major  tributaries),  and  Barima 
have  all  their  little  passenger  craft,  and  they  afford  an  entranc- 
ing way  of  studying  scenery  and  the  general  characteristics  of 
the  country. 

My  own  main  journey  was  made  by  way  of  the  Demerara 
River  to  Wismar,  thence  by  rail  across  a  line  of  inner  sand- 
dunes  —  the  ancient  sea-beach,  still  attested  by  the  presence  of 
shells  which  are  identical  with  those  found  on  the  ocean  front 
—  largely  overgrown  with  the  trumpet-tree  (Cecropia  peliata), 
to  Rockstone  on  the  Essequibo,  and  from  Rockstone  (which  lies 
a  short  distance  above  the  head  of  a  long  line  of  rapids)  to 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  Potaro  River.  The  Demerara,  in  its 
course  of  about  70  miles  to  Wismar,  presents  scenery  of  only 
a  mild  type,  but  a  veritable  moving  picture  of  life.  The  vege- 
tation that  borders  it  is  rankly  tropical,  but  what  there  is  of 
woodland  or  forest  is  probably  wholly  of  second  growth.  Great 
thickets  of  canna,  of  the  giant-leaved  '  muck-a-muck '  (Mon- 
trichardia  arborescens} ,  and  cane  grow  out  of  the  river's  banks, 
and  with  other  plants  form  so  dense  a  fringe  to  the  water  that 
a  land-surface  is  rarely  to  be  seen,  not  even  to  a  stray  rock  or 
pebble.  The  tier  of  thicket  that  rises  back  of  the  river-fringe 


A   JOURKEY    TO   BRITISH   GUIANA         341 

is  a  vast  conglomeration  of  green,  in  which  the  eye  notes  here 
and  there  clumps  of  eta  (Mauritia  flexuosa)  and  suwarri  palm, 
of  the  more  graceful  cucurrit  and  manicole,  the  grey-barked  and 
nearly  naked-branched  ceiba,  with  its  swinging  nests  of  cassiques, 
the  lofty  (Mora  excelsa)  purple-heart,  and  a  mass  of  other  trees 
all  roped  and  matted  together,  and  densely  shrouded  in  upper 
growths  of  aroids,  bromelias,  and  orchids.  Tiny  hamlets,  some 
of  them  only  visible  in  a  few  scattered  houses,  in  a  detached 
church,  or  in  a  country-store  bearing  the  name  of  Chinese  pro- 
prietorship, here  and  there  peer  out  from  the  canopy  of  vege- 
tation, or  give  evidences  of  existence  in  growths  of  bananas  and 
cocoanut.  But  at  all  the  *  landings,'  which  with  few  excep- 
tions are  made  moving  in  mid-stream,  in  the  manner  of  land- 
ings on  the  Rhine,  you  have  plenty  of  folk  —  men,  women,  and 
children,  mostly  black  or  brown  —  come  out  to  meet  you,  to 
gather  in  what  is  desired  for  debarkation  at  their  *  ports,'  or 
to  take  passage  for  some  farther  point  on  the  river.  At  such 
meetings  a  generous  flow  of  language  usually  acts  as  a  stimu- 
lant to  what  intercourse  is  provided.  The  number  of  native 
boats  that  ply  on  the  river  is  very  large,  and  at  nearly  all 
times  some  of  these  —  whether  the  simple  dug-out  or  pirogue 
('corial')  or  the  banana-leaf  sheltered  scow  and  flat-boat  — 
can  be  picked  up  along  either  shore.  They  transport  fruit, 
dyewoods,  baskets,  wooden-ware  and  charcoal,  some  coming  from 
far  inland,  others  from  the  tributary  waters  that  discharge  under 
forest  archways,  so  thickly  screened  by  hanging  and  climbing 
plants  as  to  be  all  but  lost  to  the  unaccustomed  eye. 

Throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  the  river- journey  individuals 
of  a  species  of  fork-tailed  swallow  (Atticora  melanoleuca)  would 
take  refuge  in  a  locker  under  the  roof  of  the  steamboat's  deck. 
They  came  in  twos  and  threes,  would  stop  for  a  while  and  then 
be  off  again,  wholly  unmindful  of  the  presence  of  man.  Be- 
yond these  creatures  there  was  little  of  animal  life  to  be  seen. 
Some  bitterns  and  a  few  steel-blue  kingfishers  would  at  times 
flit  across  the  water,  and  occasional  stray  parrots,  easily  recog- 
nized by  the  rapid,  short  movement  of  the  wings  and  their 
flight  in  twos,  might  be  observed  gambolling  among  the  loftier 
tree-crowns ;  but  in  general  it  was  a  quiet  nature  that  prevailed, 
and  there  was  little  to  suggest  a  struggle  for  existence. 


342  ANGELO   HEILPRIX 


THE  FOEEST  PRIMEVAL  OF  THE  ESSEQUIBO 

Just  beyond  Rockstone,  where  a  line  of  stately  eucalyptus  trees 
leads  up  to  a  modest  but  well-kept  hostelry  or  bungalow  built 
on  the  edge  of  the  woods,  the  Essequibo  opens  out  into  a  superb 
expanse,  with  the  lofty  forest  primeval  breaking  down  in  cur- 
tained walls  quite  to  the  river's  brink.  It  is  here,  where  civi- 
lization is  left  behind,  that  one  learns  to  appreciate  what  wealth 
of  tropical  vegetation  really  signifies,  and  how  meek  and  lowly, 
even  if  lovingly  beautiful,  is  the  vegetation  that  in  the  north 
we  ordinarily  conceive  of  as  being  luxuriant.  Little  wonder 
that  the  botanist  Richard  Schomburgk  wrote  in  raptured  ecstasy 
his  description  of  this  wonderland,  that  his  eyes  felt  continu- 
ously hungry  for  new  marvels  of  forest  creation.  Fifty  years 
and  more  have  elapsed  since  the  journey  of  this  naturalist  was 
undertaken,  but  the  wilds  of  British  Guiana,  save  for  the  tiny 
steam  craft  that  move  up  and  down  the  rivers,  puffing  out  their 
long  lines  of  smoke,  and  for  a  few  gold-holes  and  a  few  clear- 
ings made  around  gold-prospects,  remain  the  same  as  they  were 
in  the  forties  —  untraversed  by  paths,  uncut,  and  forbidding,  as 
they  will  still  continue  to  remain  for  many  years  in  the  future. 
The  sweep  of  water  extends  out  from  one  to  one  and  a  half 
miles  in  width,  here  and  there  enclosing  islands  large  and  small, 
but  everywhere  with  virtually  unbroken  walls  of  vegetation  to 
mark  its  limiting  borders.  There  are  no  longer  hamlets  or 
houses,  no  more  clearings  or  cultivated  patches;  hardly  a  boat 
glides  upon  the  placid  surface  of  the  dark  waters.  The  majesty 
of  nature  is  held  up  in  its  half -silent  wilderness,  in  the  sea  of 
green  that  in  towering  masses  teaches  a  lesson  of  humility  — 
that  tells  the  inconsequence  of  man.  For  a  journey  of  upwards 
of  seventy  miles  we  saw  no  break  in  the  forest,  save  where 
tributary  waters  come  to  join  the  parent  stream,  parting  the 
wilds  now  on  one  side,  then  on  the  other. 

He  is,  indeed,  a  fortunate  traveller  who  can  make  clear  to 
himself  the  components  of  this  forest  vegetation.  We  recognize 
the  uplifted  crowns  of  the  mora,  of  the  purple-heart  and  green- 
heart,  here  and  there  the  feathery  tufts  of  different  palms, 
occasional  fronds  of  giant  tree-ferns,  or  the  buttressed  trunks 


A   JOURNEY    TO   BRITISH   GUIANA         343 

of  the  ceiba ;  but  what  are  these  to  the  vast  assemblage  of  forms 
that  are  a  secret  to  all  but  the  professional  botanist  or  that 
have  yet  to  receive  a  name  ?  The  eye  follows  wonderingly  the 
long  lines  of  swinging  and  festooned  lianas  or  bush-ropes, 
searches  the  rugged  and  scarring  growths  of  air-plants  that 
shroud  the  upper  tree-trunks,  and  then  falls  upon  that  wonder- 
ful outer  tunic,  the  curtain  of  creepers,  that  overgrows  all,  and, 
hanging  terrace-like  from  crown  to  root,  keeps  to  itself  the 
mystery  of  the  interior. 

The  wall  of  vegetation  maintains  a  generally  uniform  height 
of  125  to  150  feet,  with  projecting  crowns  occasionally  rising 
20—30  feet  higher.  It  is  this  great  height,  so  difficult  at  first 
to  realize,  which  makes  the  solemn  grandeur  of  the  equatorial 
woodland.  The  eye  fatigues  in  following  the  tree-trunks  to 
their  lofty  terminations,  and  where  it  has  been  finally  set  at 
rest  it  only  half  sees  through  the  intricacies  of  foliage  that 
bound  its  path.  The  forest,  although  very  densely  matted  on 
the  absolute  water-margin  —  so  much  so  as  to  make  a  footing 
almost  impossible  in  many  parts  —  is  not  strictly  impenetrable 
even  in  the  ordinary  descriptive  sense;  for,  once  away  from 
the  water,  the  barrier  of  creepers  largely  disappears,  and  the 
undergrowth  progressively  thins  out.  But  it  is  only  at  rare 
intervals  that  the  machete  or  cutlass  can  be  dispensed  with. 

Although  the  general  colour  effect  of  the  outer  wall  of  the 
forest  is  that  of  an  intense  green,  there  are,  nevertheless,  many 
interchanges  of  brown,  russet,  and  silvery  grey  —  the  expression 
of  seasonal  change,  more  or  less  corresponding  to  the  autumnal 
changes  in  our  own  vegetation,  in  the  foliage  of  certain  groups 
of  plants,  I  believe  for  the  most  part  Leguminosce;  but  there 
were  few  trees  or  bushes  that  were  destitute  of  leaf-covering  — 
a  marked  contrast  to  the  '  winter '  vegetation  which  I  had 
before  observed  on  the  plains  of  Yucatan,  or  to  that  which  I 
found  in  the  middle  of  April  on  the  slopes  of  the  outer  Andes 
between  La  Guaira  and  Caracas.  I  was  surprised  to  find  here 
and  elsewhere  in  the  forest  so  few  fallen  monarchs  and  generally 
decaying  timbers  —  a  striking  contrast  to  the  picture  of  our 
own  north  woods.  What  became  of  the  trees  that  had  passed 
their  years  was  not  always  apparent,  but  the  silent,  destructive 
work  of  the  little  termite  tells  at  least  a  part  of  the  story.  They 


344  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

grind  down  to  powder,  and  stand  as  messengers  to  assimilate 
the  living  with  the  dead. 

The  average  student  or  reader  is  apt  to  picture  the  tropical 
wilderness  with  an  aspect  wholly  different  from  that  of  the 
forest  of  deciduous  trees  of  the  North.  Strange  forms  in  foliage 
are  calculated  to  impress  the  mind  in  a  particular  way,  and  to 
give  a  distinctness  to  contour  which  is  largely  or  wholly  wanting 
elsewhere.  And,  were  it  possible  to  unite  into  one  picture  the 
varying  and  more  distinctive  patterns  which  the  different  groups 
of  plants  exhibit,  the  composite  would  be  truly  a  picture  such 
as  one  generally  sees  in  sketches  of  tropical  scenery.  Truth- 
fully, too,  one  may  say  that  such  pictures  in  Nature  do  exist, 
as,  for  example,  in  the  deep  valleys  of  the  islands  of  Dominica 
or  Martinique,  where  the  cannas,  the  heliconias,  the  tree-ferns, 
bamboos,  and  palms  are  not  only  distinctive  physiognomic  types, 
but  occur  in  such  numbers  and  in  such  positions  as  to  make  the 
landscape  conformably  physiognomic.  This  is  not  the  case 
with  the  forest  of  Guiana,  where  the  types  of  vegetation  that 
might  be  thought  to  be  physiognomic  in  the  broad  characters 
which  they  present  are  so  far  overshadowed  by  the  types  that 
are  not  particularly  distinctive  that  they  lose  themselves  as  de- 
termined or  dominating  figures  in  the  landscape.  The  palm, 
for  example,  which  perhaps  most  people  would  assume  to  be 
the  one  great  distinctive  feature  of  the  vegetation  of  the  tropics, 
is  here  completely  lost,  for  its  tufted  crown  does  not  generally 
rise  to  more  than  one-half  the  height  of  the  great  wall  of  the 
forest,  and  even  in  clumps  it  is  frequently  difficult  to  distinguish. 
The  major  part  of  the  woodland,  when  not  too  closely  scanned 
or  when  studied  in  mass,  has  an  astonishingly  northern  aspect, 
the  aspect  of  the  woods  which  are  familiar  to  us  in  the  types  of 
the  locust,  the  laurel,  beech,  elm,  and  walnut.  This  broad  re- 
semblance has  been  clearly  pointed  out  by  Im  Thurn  in  his 
work  Studies  among  the  Indians  of  British  Guiana,  and 
doubtless  has  suggested  itself  to  many  other  observers.  When, 
however,  a  closer  study  is  made  of  the  components  of  tropical 
vegetation,  when  integrals  are  examined  in  place  of  aggregated 
masses,  the  resemblances  to  northern  types,  however  strong  they 
may  yet  appear,  give  way  to  differences  that  are  far  more  pro- 
nounced in  their  appeal  to  the  eye.  It  is  in  the  interior  of  the 


A   JOUKNEY    TO    BEITISH   GUIANA         345 

forest  that  we  learn  to  read  the  architecture  of  the  vast  structure 
that  is  about  us  —  to  approach  with  awe  the  giant  buttressed 
trunks  of  the  mora,  the  ceiba,  the  Eriodendron,  or  Ficus,  to  gaze 
with  wondering  delight  upon  the  wealth  of  vegetation  that  in 
shrouds,  in  festooned  lines  and  garlands,  form  the  upper  vegetal 
zone.  It  is  no  longer  the  land  of  the  North,  but  the  land  where 
summer  skies  are  a  continuous  day.  The  impressiveness  of 
Nature  is  here  at  one  with  its  glories,  and  man  stands  and  con- 
templates in  silence. 

It  may  not  be  easy  to  take  the  full  measure  of  beauty  of  a 
tropical  forest;  nor  indeed,  despite  its  extraordinary  wealth  of 
vegetable  forms,  need  it  command  a  higher  or  more  satisfying 
degree  of  admiration  than  the  sunlit  leafy  woods  of  the  North. 
The  forest  of  the  South,  rank  in  growth  and  illuminated  by 
hardly  more  than  flashes  of  sunlight,  may  be  thought  by  many 
to  be  oppressive  in  its  grandeur;  it  is  forbidding  rather  than 
inviting,  for  there  are  no  opening  glades  or  vistas  of  moss- 
grown  retreats,  no  soft  carpets  of  grass  or  flowering  banks,  no 
receding  lines  of  tree-trunks,  to  throw  dimming  shadows  into 
the  interior.  Everything  is  grand  and  majestic,  built  on  a  plan 
to  be  awe-inspiring  rather  than  pleasing,  to  evoke  admiration 
rather  than  to  delight. 

Mr.  Wallace,  in  his  illuminating  writings  upon  '  Tropical 
Nature/  has  laid  emphasis,  in  a  contrast  between  the  forest  of 
the  South  and  that  of  the  North  —  or,  indeed,  between  the 
vegetation  generally  of  the  two  sections  of  the  globe  —  on  the 
marked  absence  in  the  former  of  showy  flowers,  of  that  display 
which  we  recognize  in  the  glory  of  a  field  of  clover,  or  daisy 
and  dandelion,  and  in  the  blossoming  crowns  of  the  apple,  the 
pear,  and  the  cherry.  The  traveller,  he  remarks,  may  wander 
for  weeks  among  or  about  the  wilds  of  the  Amazonian  solitudes 
without  once  having  his  attention  attracted  by  showy  flowers. 
The  wilderness  is  green,  severe,  and  unrelieved  by  colour.  One 
cannot  absolutely  accept  this  picture,  albeit  it  is  framed  by  one 
whose  years  of  observation  in  the  equatorial  regions  entitle  him 
to  a  degree  of  consideration  which  falls  to  the  work  of  but  few 
naturalists.  Mr.  Im  Thurn,  in  the  work  already  referred  to, 
has  taken  distinct  exception  to  Mr.  Wallace's  characterization, 
in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  water-front  of  the  Guiana  forest. 


346  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

A  display  of  flowers  is  here  by  no  means  exceptional,  and  I 
question  if  there  are  many  areas  of  northern  woodland  which 
have  more,  or  even  as  much,  to  show.  One  cannot  readily  forget 
the  patches  of  blue  and  purple  Passifloracece  which  cover  in 
sheets  the  outer  tunic  of  the  forest,  the  blazes  of  white  and 
yellow  acacias,  or  the  intensely  scarlet  wheels  of  the  Rhexia. 
These  may  not  be  more  beautiful  or  attractive  than  the  exquisite 
flowers  of  the  rhododendron,  the  mountain-laurel  or  dog-wood, 
but  are  they  much  less  ?  The  northern  woods,  in  fact,  are  not 
in  themselves  ordinarily  prolific  in  a  display  of  flowers.  It  13 
in  the  open  fields  and  wastelands  that  we  find  that  floral  aggre- 
gation for  which,  I  believe,  one  searches  in  vain  in  the  tropics. 

THE  LIFE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  commonplace  observation  that  life  is  prolific 
in  the  southern  '  bush.'  Yet,  be  it  so  or  not,  there  are  some 
who  choose  to  believe  that  these  wilds  are  impressive  in  their 
silence,  by  that  hushed  nature  which  is  a  part  of  the  Polar 
tract.  The  deep  forest  interior  may  in  places  wear  this  char- 
acter of  desertion  and  loneliness,  but  elsewhere  it  plays  true 
to  the  world  which  inhabits  it,  and  resounds  in  joyous  sounds 
and  uproarious  tumult.  Let  the  stranger  place  himself  on  the 
borders  of  the  forest  at  almost  any  point  of  the  river  and  he  may 
be  certain  sooner  or  later  to  become  party  to  a  woodland  chorus 
for  which  he  will  have  been  but  ill  prepared.  It  is  the  voice 
of  the  red-howling  monkey  that  he  hears  —  perhaps  that  of  a 
single  individual,  or  it  may  be  of  a  whole  troop ;  but  either  way 
it  is  a  voice  of  no  gentle  cadence  —  a  roar  that  yields  in  little 
to  that  of  the  lion.  The  forest  is  seemingly  in  tumult,  ringing 
with  a  desolating  cry ;  but  presently  one  hears  only  echoes,  and 
for  a  while  everything  may  be  quiet.  It  was  my  ill-fortune  not 
to  see  any  of  these  monkeys,  or,  for  that  matter,  any  other  form 
of  monkey;  although  fairly  abundant,  and  seemingly  always 
prepared  to  lend  their  voices  to  the  night,  they  managed  to  keep 
out  of  my  way  and  sight.  I  am  told,  on  what  seems  to  be  reli- 
able authority,  that  on  perfectly  still  nights  the  fracas  caused 
by  a  single  individual  howler  may  at  times  be  clearly  heard  at 
a  distance  of  three  or  four  miles,  or  even  more. 


A   JOURNEY    TO   BRITISH   GUIANA         347 

Alexander  von  Humboldt,  in  his  essay  on  the  '  Nocturnal 
Life  of  Animals/  refers  to  the  fitful  roar  of  the  American 
lion.  I  did  not  at  any  time  hear  this  sound  in  the  southern 
wilds,  although  acquainted  with  it  in  the  North,  nor  did  I  once 
come  upon  the  tracks  of  the  animal.  On  our  launch  journey 
up  the  Essequibo  we  had  occasion  to  notice  a  beautiful  specimen 
of  the  black  jaguar,  or  Maipuri  tiger  as  it  is  here  called,  which 
was  leisurely  pacing  a  sand-pit  that  the  river  had  thrown  up. 
The  animal  had  come  out  of  the  forest,  and  may  have  been 
following  a  trail  of  capybaras  (Water-haas),  several  individ- 
uals of  which  had  but  a  few  moments  before  come  down  to  the 
water's  edge.  This  rodent  seems  to  be  the  favorite  food  of 
the  '  tiger '  in  these  parts.  A  large  spotted  cat,  reported  to 
be  a  jaguar  but  which  may  have  been  an  ocelot,  visited  a  min- 
ing clearing  (where  I  was  staying  as  a  guest),  back  of  the 
Omai,  a  few  days  later,  but  beyond  causing  a  momentary  fright 
to  a  few  negroes  did  no  damage.  The  stock  had  been  well 
guarded.  My  limited  days  in  the  woods  did  not  permit  me  to  be- 
come acquainted  with  more  than  a  few  of  the  animal  forms  that 
are  represented  to  be  most  common  in  the  region  about.  One 
of  these  was  an  individual  of  the  three-toed  sloth  or  a'i  (Bradypus 
iridactylus) ,  which  had  wandered  too  close  to  a  camp  of  dredge- 
builders,  and  was  captured.  It  was  most  interesting  to  watch 
the  antics  of  this  animal.  With  a  face  more  suggestive  of  an 
idiot  than  of  anything  else,  and  the  bristling,  shaggy  coat 
wrapped  about  its  awkwardly-moving  limbs,  it  presented  an  as- 
pect so  singularly  at  variance  with  that  of  other  mammals  that 
one  may  easily  pardon  Waterton  for  having  placed  the  figure 
of  one  on  his  frontispiece  bearing  the  legend  '  A  Nondescript.' 
The  animal  made  various  efforts  to  secure  his  liberty  by  climb- 
ing up  posts  and  tree-trunks,  but  he  was  taken  away  to  be  cared 
for  in  a  neighbouring  shack.  His  attempt  to  grapple  a  tree- 
trunk  the  dimensions  of  which  were  much  too  large  for  his 
enveloping  arms  was  ludicrous  in  the  extreme.  As  in  other 
parts  of  the  South  American  wilds,  the  leaves  of  the  trumpet- 
tree  or  Cecropia  constitute  the  sloth's  principal  food. 

While  the  great  forests  of  the  North  are  largely  deficient  in 
bird-song,  so  much  so  that  bird-life  might  be  almost  thought  to 
be  absent  from  them,  this  is  in  no  wise  true  of  the  Guiana  forest. 


348  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

The  garrulous  notes  of  the  parrots  and  parroquets,  the  yelping 
calls  of  the  toucan  and  aracari,  sound  from  a  far  way  in  the 
lofty  tree-tops,  so  far  removed  that  one  fails  to  recognize  the 
brilliant  colours  with  which  these  birds  are  adorned.  Of 
exquisite  tone  are  the  resonant  notes  of  the  pee-pi-yo  (Lathria 
cineracea},  one  of  the  numerous  family  of  chatterers  (Ampe- 
lidae).  I  do  not  recall  a  bird-note  in  any  way  comparable  to 
that  of  this  remarkable  songster.  Others  are  more  musical, 
softer  in  cadence  and  melody,  more  brilliant  in  scale ;  but  none 
has  that  emphasis  of  sound-volume,  that  metallic  '  parting  of 
the  ways,'  which  distinguishes  the  pee-pi-yo.  It  is  the  most 
general  note  of  the  forest,  just  as  the  '  Qu'-est-ce-que-dit?'  is 
the  dominant  note  of  the  gardens  and  streets  of  the  city.  I  was 
not  fortunate  enough  to  catch  up  the  bell-notes  of  the  white 
araponga  or  bell-bird  (Chasmorhynchus  carunculatus  or  niveus), 
which  is  said  to  be  a  common  form  in  these  wilds. 

Somewhat  toward  the  evening  hour,  but  at  times  heard 
throughout  the  day,  the  extraordinary,  metallic  whirr  of  the 
six-o'clock-bee  or  razor-grinder  cannot  escape  one.  The  insect 
flits  from  bush  to  bush  and  seemingly  a  machine-shop  goes 
along. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  insect  pests  are  not  noticeably 
numerous  in  these  forests  —  at  least,  they  were  not  so  in  the 
parts  that  I  visited.  Recalling  the  account  given  by  Humboldt 
of  the  torments  that  were  inflicted  by  the  myriads  of  mosquitoes 
along  the  Cassiquiare  River,  one  could  well  be  pardoned  for 
fully  preparing  against  like  torments  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Guiana  rivers.  But  the  mosquito  was  found  to  be  almost  wholly 
absent  from  both  the  Demerara  and  Essequibo  rivers,  and  the 
minor  insect  plagues  were  about  equally  deficient,  or,  at  least, 
not  active.  Presumably  the  large  volume  of  swiftly-flowing 
waters  was  not  favourable  to  the  development  of  these  plague- 
breeders,  and  the  traveller  was  given  to  enjoy  the  beauties  of 
Nature  unmolested  and  unsought  for  blood-tribute.  Even  the 
great  wasp  or  marabunta,  whose  home  is  more  in  the  city  than 
in  the  forest,  gave  no  opportunity  for  complaint. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  connected  with  animal  life 
that  was  called  to  my  attention  concerned  a  small  bat,  probably 
the  Desmodus  rufus,  whose  blood-sucking  habits  made  caution 


A   JOURNEY    TO    BRITISH   GUIANA         349 

necessary  to  both  man  and  beast.  I  first  came  across  this  bat, 
which  barely  exceeded  in  size  our  own  common  Vesperugo,  in 
the  Demerara  Exploration  Company's  clearing,  about  two  miles 
from  Omai  Landing,  on  the  Essequibo  River.  It  was  there  a 
nightly  and  almost  constant  visitor  to  the  mule  paddock,  and, 
when  the  opportunity  permitted,  it  did  not  hesitate  to  attack 
the  withers  of  the  animals  kept  there,  and  draw  their  blood 
freely.  So  persistent  were  these  attacks  that  it  was  found 
necessary,  as  a  preventive  to  them,  to  have  the  paddock  illumined 
throughout  the  night  with  electric  lights,  the  bright  glare  from 
which  was  seemingly  taken  unkindly  by  the  little  vampires.  The 
quantity  of  blood  actually  drained  by  the  bats  themselves  is 
small,  but  when  the  work  of  bleeding  has  been  finished  there  is 
a  free  flow,  the  nature  of  the  wound  being  such  as  to  remain 
open  for  a 'long  time.  It  seems  to  be  a  fact  that  the  animals 
attacked  are  not  for  a  long  time  made  conscious  of  the  assault, 
but  in  how  far  this  unconsciousness  is  due  to  a  pleasant,  cool- 
ing sensation  which  it  is  thought  the  bat  imparts  to  his  victim 
through  the  movement  of  his  membranes  I  am  unable  to  say. 
Chickens  and  fowl  of  all  kinds  are  liable  to  attacks  similar  to 
those  which  involve  the  larger  stock,  and  man  himself  is  by  no 
means  spared.  A  coloured  boy  who  was  working  in  the  Omai 
clearing  had  been  bitten  in  the  large  toe  of  one  of  his  feet  two 
or  three  days  before  my  arrival,  and  he  was  still  limping  when 
I  made  an  examination  of  his  foot.  He  only  knew  of  the  inci- 
dent on  awakening  from  sleep  and  discovering  a  big  clot  of 
blood  in  the  hammock  which  he  occupied. 

THE  EXPLOITATION  OF  THE  INTERIOR 

With  no  interior  roadways,  its  vast  and  virtually  trackless 
forests,  and  the  obstructing  rapids  that  break  the  navigation  of 
its  waters,  it  is  in  the  colony  not  considered  a  matter  for  surprise 
that  it  should  be  slow  to  open  up  its  resources  to  the  world,  or 
that  the  inhabitants  should  barely  know  what  these  resources 
are.  The  almost  boundless  resource  of  timber,  in  both  hard  and 
dye  woods,  has  thus  far  hardly  been  touched  for  export.  Lumber 
concessions,  under  a  wise  forestry  supervision,  there  are  here  and 
there,  but  little  of  the  material  felled  finds  its  way  beyond  the 


350  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

limits  of  the  colony.  The  most  important  specific  grants  are  for 
batata,  or  rubber,  forests  of  which  extend  across  from  the  Barima 
to  the  Mazaruni ;  but  little  has  been  realized  thus  far  from  the 
grants.  In  its  mineral  aspects  the  colony  shows  a  somewhat 
better  record,  but  yet  far  from  one  that  need  offer  a  type  to 
other  countries.  Ever  since  the  days  when  Ealeigh  set  out  in 
search  of  the  fabled  El  Dorado,  the  quest  for  gold  has  been  an 
occupation  in  Guiana,  and  what  little  this  quest  has  yielded  hag 
been  more  than  sufficient  to  demonstrate  that  gold  mining  may 
before  a  distant  future  become  an  important  industry.  Nearly 
all  the  gold  is  obtained  from  placer  deposits,  gravels,  and  clays, 
or  from  a  complex  rock  of  a  granitic  or  diabasic  character  which 
liberates  its  product  on  decomposition.  Until  recently  the  work 
of  mining  was  conducted  on  a  rudimentary  or  losing  system, 
but  latterly  considerable  profits  have  been  taken  out  from  a  few 
of  the  holdings  where  modern  machinery  has  been  introduced. 
Large  pumping-engines,  dredges,  and  stamps  have  already  found 
their  way  into  a  few  spots  in  the  interior,  and  before  long,  doubt- 
less, other  locations  will  be  similarly  provided.  Diamonds  of 
an  unusually  clear  water  have  been  obtained  from  a  few  locali- 
ties, but  as  yet  little  is  known  regarding  their  occurrence. 
Other  valuable  minerals,  except  the  commoner  kinds,  have  not 
heretofore  been  discovered.  It  is,  however,  only  the  exploration 
of  the  future  which  can  give  to  us  their  full  value. 

Highways  can  and  will  be  built  into  the  interior,  the  rivers 
will  be  opened  fully  for  navigation,  and  then  the  naturalist's 
paradise  will  gradually  be  converted  into  the  prosaic  commercial 
Hinterland.  Until  that  time  we  may  continue  to  wonder  how 
it  came  to  pass  that  a  region  so  easily  accessible,  so  prodigal  in 
the  fruits  of  Nature,  should  have  so  largely  escaped  the  atten- 
tion of  the  working  naturalist." 


X 

A  PAPER  ON  "  THE  PROGRESS  OF  DISCOVERY " 

Mr.  Heilprin's  writings  so  far  referred  to  by  no  means  ex- 
haust the  list.  He  was  an  indefatigable  contributor  to  scientific 
periodicals,  and  not  all  of  these  papers  were  preserved  by  him. 
He  had  a  happy  knack  of  throwing  his  vast  learning  into  a  popu- 
lar form,  when  the  occasion  seemed  to  demand  a  lighter  treat- 
ment than  is  usual  in  strictly  scientific  discussion.  A  good 
example  is  the  following,  from  a  paper  on  "  The  Progress  of 
Discovery  and  the  Lands  of  Promise  to  the  Explorer"  in  the 
Bulletin  of  the  Geographical  Club  of  Philadelphia  for  Decem- 
ber-January, 1894-95: 

"  Leaving  the  field  of  past  exploration  for  that  which  yet  re- 
mains to  be  accomplished,  I  shall  not  occupy  your  time  with  a 
recital  of  all  that  still  remains  the  task  of  the  explorer.  Room 
for  work  there  is  yet  in  almost  every  corner  of  the  globe,  and  it 
would  perhaps  be  a  false  distinction  to  say  that  the  special  fields 
which  I  desire  to  emphasize  are  more  important  than  many 
others.  But  at  the  present  moment  they  appeal  to  me  with  par- 
ticular force,  and  perhaps  because  I  am  a  student  of  natural 
science  as  well  as  of  geography,  their  importance  suggests  itself 
to  me  in  a  way  that  might  not  impress  the  simple  geographer. 
First  in  the  line  —  always  barring  those  seemingly  impregnable 
fortresses  of  the  antipodal  north  and  south,  the  Arctic  and  Ant- 
arctic regions,  the  interest  attaching  to  the  exploration  of  which 
is  so  well  known  as  to  require  no  further  emphasizing  —  I  would 
suggest  a  thorough  exploration  of  the  Inter-Continental  tract 
which  on  the  North  Pacific  unites  North  America  with  Asia  — 
the  Aleutian  Islands  and  Peninsula,  the  Behring  Sea  and  Strait, 
and  the  Peninsula  of  Kamtchatka.  Where  two  continents  ap- 
proach one  another  so  closely  and  give  evidence  of  having  been 


352  ANGELO  HEILPKIK 

united  at  seemingly  no  very  ancient  date;  where  a  connecting 
land-bridge  could  not  but  most  effectually  influence  the  distri- 
bution of  life,  human,  animal,  and  vegetable,  upon  two  hemi- 
spheres —  there,  manifestly,  the  harvest  of  exploration  must  be 
great,  for  bound  in  with  the  research  are  problems  of  deep  sig- 
nificance, touching  alike  the  sciences  of  geology  or  physical 
geography,  ethnology,  geology  and  botany.  We  ask  ourselves  the 
questions:  If  North  America  and  Asia  were  united,  when  and 
how  did  the  separation  take  place  ?  What  heterostatic  condition 
existing  between  the  land  and  the  water  permitted  of  the  incur- 
sion of  the  sea  or  the  dropping  of  the  land  ?  To  what  extent 
was  the  union  complete,  and  what  were  the  initiatory  steps  that 
prefaced  the  fall?  What  were  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
animal  and  vegetable  migrations  of  which  the  connecting  land- 
mass  permitted,  and  which  way  did  they  influence  the  present 
distribution  of  life  upon  the  globe  ?  In  what  way  was  the  dis- 
tribution of  races  effected  or  determined  by  that  connecting 
bridge  ?  Plainly  enough  the  breadth  of  these  questions  indi- 
cates how  vast  is  the  field  that  is  to  be  covered  by  the  answer; 
and  while  it  may  be  difficult  to  obtain  these  answers,  they  are 
surely  locked  up  with  the  rocks  that  form  the  continental  border- 
lands, the  islands  that  dot  the  sea,  and  the  submerged  bottom-land 
of  the  ocean.  And  when  they  will  have  been  obtained  they  will 
constitute  some  of  the  worthiest  contributions  to  geographical 
science  the  records  of  which  adorn  the  pages  of  discovery.  It 
is  almost  incredible  that  with  so  much  promise  in  the  exploration 
of  this  region  so  little  should  have  been  accomplished.  Easy  of 
access,  and  well  within  the  resource  of  a  moderately-equipped 
expedition,  the  region  should  long  since  have  attracted  to  it  an 
army  of  scientists,  but  for  the  moment  Dr.  George  Dawson  is 
almost  the  only  one  who  has  contributed  to  our  knowledge  on  the 
lines  of  the  inquiry  which  I  have  outlined.  Unfortunately,  as 
a  member  of  the  Behring  Sea  Commission,  his  explorations  were 
largely  controlled  by  matters  of  national  import,  and  were  not 
permitted  that  scope  which  the  interests  of  science  demand.  Yet 
the  simple  discovery  by  him  of  a  mammoth  tooth  on  one  of  the 
outlying  islands  is  in  itself  an  index  pointing  hard-by  to  the 
history  that  is  still  to  be  read  in  the  broken  fragments  of  the 
northern  waters. 


PAPEE  ON  "  THE  PROGRESS  OF  DISCOVERY  "   353 

The  second  region  to  which  I  should  direct  exploration  is  West 
Central  Africa  —  the  region  of  the  equatorial  forests,  whose 
sombre  depths,  perhaps  shaded  by  many  of  the  same  trees  which 
already  threw  out  their  arms  in  the  days  of  Herodotus,  still 
await  the  traveller  of  the  pattern  of  Emin,  Holub  and  Schwein- 
furth,  to  whom  exploration  meant  not  merely  the  following  and 
plotting  of  river-courses,  the  determination  of  astronomical  posi- 
tions and  the  laying  of  a  route,  but  the  close  investigation  of  all 
nature,  from  its  rocks,  and  plants,  and  animals  to  man  and  the 
atmosphere.  For  such  a  one  this  region  is  as  yet  a  world 
unconquered. 

The  line  of  investigation  which  I  should  here  specially  recom- 
mend is  one  looking  to  the  history  of  man  and  his  nearest  asso- 
ciates, the  anthropoid  apes,  for  after  all  the  history  of  ourselves 
appeals  with  more  force  to  almost  every  form  of  intellect  than 
probably  any  other  inquiry.  And  I  specially  emphasize  in  this 
connection  the  West  African  region  because  I  believe  that  there, 
under  competent  search,  will  be  revealed  some  of  the  most  inter- 
esting, if  not  the  most  ancient  records  that  pertain  to  hominine 
history.  For  we  cannot  lose  sight  of  the  fact,  that  in  whatever 
manner  we  may  view  the  evolutionary  doctrine  so  far  as  the 
direct  ancestors  of  man  are  concerned,  his  nearest  analogues  are 
the  great  apes  of  this  region,  and  from  their  habits  and  customs 
much  can  be  learned.  But  I  wish  specially  to  emphasize  the 
necessity  for  searching  for  their  predecessors;  the  rocks  of  the 
region,  so  far  as  our  knowledge  is  concerned,  are  yet  silent  on 
this  point,  but  remain  silent  only  because  no  real  effort  has  been 
made  to  search  their  records.  It  has  been  the  fashion  of  late 
years  for  geologists  and  naturalists  to  consider  the  African  fauna 
as  an  importation  from  Europe  —  the  element  of  the  northern 
continent  driven  south  by  the  cold  of  the  Glacial  epoch,  and 
crossing  over  into  the  southern  continent  at  a  time  when  one  or 
more  land-bridges  spanned  what  is  now  the  Mediterranean. 
There  is  much  to  support  this  view,  perhaps  equally  much  that 
is  against  it,  but  in  whatever  way  the  evidence  lies  it  never  will 
be  complete  until  the  rocks  of  Africa  are  searched  for  possible 
ancestors  or  progenitors  of  the  existing  fauna.  Until  they  are 
discovered,  or  their  existence  virtually  disproved,  the  question 
of  origination  will  be  an  open  one,  and  in  so  far  will  the  history 


354:  ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

of  the  anthropoid  apes,  and  I  venture  to  say  with  them,  the  his- 
tory of  man,  be  debatable. 

Much  interest  has  been  reawakened  of  late  years  in  this  West 
African  region  through  the  rediscovery,  in  various  parts  of  it,  of 
those  diminutive  people  to  which  Du  Chaillu  first  called  serious 
attention  the  better  part  of  half  a  century  ago.  At  that  time 
there  were  comparatively  few  who  were  prepared  to  believe  that 
the  pygmies  of  Herodotus  were  actually  living,  and  the  young 
traveller  who  first  reported  the  facts  was  subjected  to  much  ad- 
verse criticism  on  the  part  of  those  who  professed  to  know  more 
of  the  African  continent  from  the  outside  than  did  the  travellers 
from  the  inside.  The  Obongos  of  to-day,  as  they  are  described 
by  M.  Dybowski,  are  essentially  the  same  as  they  were  in 
Du  Chaillu's  time,  and  probably  differ  little  from  the  forest  chil- 
dren which  Stanley  has  made  known  to  us,  and  from  the  Akkas 
of  Schweinfurth.  In  stature  they  are  among  the  most  diminu- 
tive of  all  the  peoples  of  whom  we  have  knowledge,  the  men 
measuring  but  little  over  four  and  a  half  feet  in  height.  At  the 
present  time  they  are  found  only  in  scattered  numbers,  and 
seemingly  the  tribe  is  on  the  verge  of  extinction. 

The  third  field  of  geographical  exploration  which  to  your 
President  appeals  with  special  force  is  one  that  conducts  beneath 
the  earth's  surface,  and  would  by  the  geologist  be  considered  to 
lie  within  his  own  domain.  But  the  problem  which  it  touches 
is  geographical  as  well  as  geological,  and  in  it  not  impossibly 
will  be  found  the  answer  to  that  vague  hypothesis  of  an  Atlantis, 
which  for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  or  more,  has  presented 
itself  to  us  in  both  scientific  and  unscientific  form.  The  Dar- 
winian theory  of  coral  islands,  which  presupposes  vast  subsi- 
dences over  the  earth's  surface  —  subsidences  that  are  almost  co- 
extensive with  the  expanse  of  our  oceanic  basins  —  still  awaits 
a  final  verdict  from  the  practical  side  of  proof ;  and  only  when 
deep  borings  will  have  been  made  in  coral  islands  will  this  proof 
be  accessible.  It  is  the  province  of  geography  to  determine  upon 
what  form  of  structure  —  whether  a  volcanic  peak,  a  mountain 
range,  or  the  summit  of  some  subsided  continental  area  —  the 
many  coral  islands  that  dot  the  sea  are  implanted.  The  zoologist 
has  given  to  us  the  conditions  under  which  the  coral  animals 
construct  their  reef -habitations ;  it  is  now  for  the  geographer  to 


PAPEK  ON  "  THE  PROGRESS  OF  DISCOVERY  "    355 

supply  the  terrestrial  or  oceanic  configuration  which  meets  these 
conditions.  The  Bermuda  Islands  offer  a  specially  desirable 
field  for  this  form  of  inquiry.  Distant  upwards  of  600  miles 
from  the  nearest  shore  line  —  with  the  exception  of  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  the  most  distinctively  oceanic  of  all  oceanic  islands 
—  and  so  far  as  is  known  independent  in  their  existence  of  all 
volcanic  associations,  they  seem  particularly  adapted  to  throw 
light  on  the  problem  of  past  changes  in  the  land  and  water  areas 
of  the  globe.  A  boring  of  a  few  hundred  feet  —  possibly  even 
a  single  hundred  —  would  determine  the  substratum  of  the 
islands,  and  inform  us  whether  we  are  dealing  with  a  simple 
oceanic  volcano,  or  with  the  submerged  summits  of  a  mountain 
axis  whose  base  is  implanted  upon  the  oceanic  floor.  If  the 
latter  should  prove  to  be  the  case,  then  after  all  we  may  not  be 
far  removed  from  the  gates  of  the  veritable  Atlantis.  Many  facts 
in  geology  and  in  the  distribution  of  animal  life  to-day  favor 
the  view  of  a  comparatively  recent  (geologically  speaking)  land- 
mass  connecting  Western  Africa  with  the  ancient  Spanish  Main, 
and  it  would  certainly  be  interesting  to  throw  additional  light 
upon  this  subject  from  the  side  of  geography.  The  investment 
of  a  few  thousand  dollars  could  not  be  more  profitably  placed 
than  in  the  effort  to  determine  what  is  within  the  land  that  is 
covered  by  the  sea. 

A  fourth  field  of  exploration,  which  holds  out  rich  reward  to 
the  all-round  investigator,  is  the  extreme  south  of  the  South 
American  continent  and  the  islands  and  land-mass  that  more  or 
less  project  it  in  the  direction  of  the  Antarctic  continent.  In  the 
exploration  of  this  region  we  open  up  much  the  same  problems  as 
those  that  are  presented  by  the  North-Pacific  —  namely,  the 
problems  of  continental  relationships  and  breakages.  What  is 
the  relationship  of  South  America  with  the  Antarctic  continent  ? 
Whence  has  it  obtained  its  fauna  and  flora  ?  Who  are  the  far 
southern  people  ?  These  are  but  a  few  of  the  questions  to  which 
neither  the  geographer  nor  the  scientist  is  ashamed  to  receive  an 
answer.  It  is  gratifying  to  be  able  to  state  in  this  connection 
that,  in  .England  at  least,  the  revival  of  Antarctic  exploration  is 
being  warmly  agitated,  and  unless  the  signs  entirely  fail  us,  we 
may  expect  before  long  a  well-equipped  expedition  to  the  region 
which  for  a  half  century,  or  since  the  days  of  Sir  James  Clark 


356 


ANGELO  HEILPRIST 


Ross  and  Wilkes,  has  remained  a  blank  upon  the  calendar  of 
geographical  research.  What  may  or  may  not  be  obtained  in  the 
far  south  cannot  be  foretold;  our  present  knowledge  of  the 
region  dates  from  a  time  when  the  possibilities  of  conducting 
research  in  the  Antarctic  realm  were  exceedingly  meagre,  and 
when  the  enthusiasm  that  is  begotten  of  successful  research  had 
not  yet  developed." 


XI 
HEILPRIN'S   RECOLLECTIONS    OF   HUXLEY 

In  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  for  January,  1896,  ap- 
peared Mr.  Heilprin's  interesting  paper,  "A  Student's  Rec- 
ollections of  Huxley  " : 

"  It  was  my  pleasant  fortune,  a  few  years  back,  to  have  my 
name  enrolled  with  a  limited  few  in  the  registry  book  of  the 
Royal  School  of  Mines  in  London,  destined  for  work  at  one  of 
the  ten  or  twelve  tables  which  covered  the  greater  part  of  the 
ground  space  of  Professor  Huxley's  laboratory.  The  building 
was  a  comparatively  new  one,  having  been  erected  as  an  adjunct 
to  the  new  South  Kensington  Museum  on  Exhibition  Road,  and 
from  the  top  floor  looked  out  the  various  rooms  in  which  we  were 
to  receive  our  tutorage  from  the  great  naturalist.  A  climbing 
flight  of  stone  steps,  with  landings,  wound  round  to  this  summit, 
to  which  at  times  of  irregular  journey  also  conducted  a  box 
'  lift.'  On  one  of  my  daily  upward  saunterings  I  chanced  to 
stumble  upon  my  master,  who,  always  a  rapid  walker,  overtook 
me  on  the  grand  '  round/  and  cordially  greeted  me  as  a  fellow- 
traveller.  Possibly  I  allowed  myself  a  little  to  be  overtaken, 
for,  though  I  had  already  been  in  the  workshop  and  lecture 
theater  a  number  of  days,  and  had  answered  questions  on  Torula, 
Paramwcium,  and  other  low  grades  of  organisms,  and  had  even 
swallowed  a  good-natured  rebuke  for  attempting  to  use  a  com- 
pound binocular  in  place  of  the  simple,  and  confessedly  clumsy, 
microscopes  which  were  furnished  gratuitously  to  the  students, 
the  opportunity  to  meet  the  man  as  man  and  not  as  teacher  had 
not  yet  presented  itself.  Professor  Huxley's  private  rooms 
almost  adjoined  the  laboratory,  and  frequently  on  passing  the 


358  ANGELO   HEILPKQi 

door  the  temptation  grew  strong  upon  me  to  knock  and  allow 
myself  the  honor  of  an  interview,  but  each  time  a  certain  Toot- 
sian  timidity  overcame  me,  and  directed  my  course  either  to  the 
right  or  to  the  left.  The  meeting  on  the  landing  was  thus  a  de- 
liverance, and  Huxley  allowed  me  to  make  the  most  of  it  by 
himself  opening  the  conversation.  It  began  with  a  reference  to 
the  deficiencies  in  modern  building  construction,  particularly 
applied  to  the  South  Kensington  annex,  and  evoked  by  the  ab- 
sence of  proper  mounting  appliances.  '  Our  lifts  are  not  like 
the  grand  elevators  in  your  country,'  remarked  the  professor  — 
a  thought  in  which  it  was  not  difficult  to  concur. 

This  first  bit  of  extra-class  conversation  impressed  itself  for- 
cibly upon  my  mind,  both  for  the  pleasure  that  it  gave  me  and 
the  surprise  it  occasioned  in  the  knowledge  that  I  was  from 
American  soil.  No  reference  to  foreign  studentship  had  hereto- 
fore been  made,  and  I  was  a  little  puzzled  to  know  what  kind 
of  information  had  led  to  the  betrayal  of  my  personality.  Con- 
siderably later  I  learned  that  a  close  friend  of  my  father's,  the 
late  Professor  Youmans  —  himself  a  friend  equally  to  science 
and  to  the  scientific  student  —  had  addressed  a  personal  note  to 
Professor  Huxley,  advising  him  of  my  presence  and  commending 
me  in  the  usual  way  to  a  kind  consideration  and  to  an  equally 
considerate  esteem.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  justness  and 
fairness  of  the  master  that  this  letter,  while  it  may  have  paved 
the  way  to  a  more  informal  acquaintance  outside  of  the  class 
room,  in  no  way  influenced  favoritism  within,  or  saved  me  from 
sound  criticism  of  my  work  when  it  merited  it.  This  was  not 
exactly  at  long  intervals,  and  particularly  do  I  recall  the  painful 
awaiting  of  judgment  on  a  mangled  dissection  of  the  nerves  of 
the  frog.  '  Your  blue  papers  are  where  the  red  should  be,  and 
the  sympathetic  is  gone  '  —  a  piece  of  information  the  basis  of 
a  portion  of  which  had  already  only  too  keenly  been  realized. 

At  no  time  was  criticism  given  in  a  way  to  hurt,  and  more 
commonly  encouragement  and  commendation  took  the  place  of 
criticism.  But  a  thing  had  to  be  really  well  done  to  call  out 
praise,  and  an  exuberance  of  it  rarely  broke  an  echo  from  the 
laboratory  walls.  On  one  occasion  I  was  startled  by  the  inquiry 
if  my  drawing  —  a  drawing  of  the  division  lines  in  the  cells  of  a 
certain  water  plant  —  was  made  from  the  object  or  from  im- 


HEILPRIN'S  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  HUXLEY    359 

agination,  an  inquiry  which  threw  doubt  in  my  mind  as  to 
whether  I  was  receiving  praise  or  condemnation.  The  represen- 
tation was  considered  unusually  true  to  Nature,  but  I  was  forced 
to  admit  that  it  was  a  combined  product  of  the  visual  and  men- 
tal eye,  and  not  a  mere  transcript  of  Nature.  This  explanation 
was  in  no  way  a  satisfaction  to  Professor  Huxley,  who  took  the 
opportunity  to  admonish  the  class  that  drawings,  however  true 
they  may  appear  to  Nature,  are  only  true  when  they  strictly 
copy  the  objects  which  they  are  intended  to  portray. 

Huxley  himself  was  an  excellent  draughtsman,  and  it  was 
frequently  remarked  of  him,  as  it  was  also  of  our  own  Dr.  Leidy, 
that  had  he  devoted  himself  to  painting,  instead  of  to  science,  he 
would  have  forced  himself  to  a  position  not  less  prominent  as  an 
artist  than  that  which  he  occupied  as  a  naturalist.  He  was 
always  precise  in  his  drawings  on  the  blackboard,  and  if  he 
could  not,  perhaps,  like  Professor  Weisbach,  of  Freiberg,  jump 
to  a  circle  and  punch  its  middle  point  with  a  stub  of  chalk,  he 
could,  apparently  without  any  hesitancy,  draw  the  most  com- 
plex anatomical  constructions,  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
every  point  clearly  intelligible  to  the  student.  It  was  probably 
from  the  father's  side  that  Mrs.  Thomas  Collier,  nee  Huxley, 
who  had  well  earned  her  several  premiums  from  the  fine-art 
institutions  of  London,  inherited  her  tendencies  and  capabilities 
in  the  direction  of  painting.  Inspired  in  a  measure,  probably, 
through  his  love  for  art,  and  with  an  inborn  feeling  for  mechan- 
ical constructions,  Professor  Huxley  always  held  a  kindly  sym- 
pathy for  all  that  pertained  to  the  science  of  engineering ;  and 
he  frequently  expressed  the  thought,  which  will  doubtless  seem 
strange  to  many,  that  he  had  missed  his  vocation,  and  that  the 
true  field  of  his  activities  should  have  been  the  field  of  an  engi- 
neer. Yet  it  is  singular  that  with  this  proclivity  for  a  branch 
of  study  which  requires  for  its  successful  accomplishment  a  gen- 
erous supply  of  mathematical  stimulus,  the  fact  that  he  was  in 
no  way  a  mathematician  did  not  terrify  Huxley.  He  fre- 
quently admitted  that  he  had  neither  a  liking  nor  an  aptitude  for 
figures,  and  it  was  a  timely  forethought  in  lecturing,  when  a 
condition  required  a  mathematical  calculation  for  its  elucidation, 
to  have  the  answer  written  in  advance  at  one  corner  of  the 
board.  This,  as  was  naively  explained  by  the  lecturer,  was  to 


360  ANGELO  HEILPRLN" 

avoid  the  easy  possibility  of  an  error  creeping  into  an  offhand 
calculation  or  problem  in  sums. 

In  lecturing  to  his  classes  Huxley  adhered  strictly  to  business, 
and  it  was  rarely  that  a  matter  of  levity  was  introduced  to  give 
merriment  to  his  listeners.  I  recall,  in  a  course  of  some  seventy 
lectures,  only  a  single  instance  of  this  kind,  when,  for  some 
reason  (no  longer  in  my  memory),  a  reference  was  made  to 
Chamisso's  '  Peter  Schlemihl '  —  a  book  which  Professor  Huxley 
frankly  admitted  gave  him  more  genuine  pleasure  than  any  other 
in  nonscientific  literature.  Whether  it  was  the  refreshing  frank- 
ness of  this  admission,  or  the  fact  in  itself  that  was  quoted, 
which  on  this  occasion  brought  forth  an  unbounded  merriment 
from  his  students,  was  perhaps  not  fully  decided  for  all  of  us, 
but  there  was  no  questioning  the  spontaneousness  of  the  ap- 
plause which  followed  the  utterance.  And  this,  as  I  now  recall 
it,  was  the  only  instance  of  applause  greeting  the  lecturer  in  the 
middle  of  the  lecture  during  the  entire  course  of  my  studentship. 
Huxley,  like  Tyndall,  was  always  careful  to  have  his  lectures 
fully  prepared.  A  few  notes  jotted  down  on  a  fly-sheet  of  paper 
or  in  small  notebooks  were  the  only  guide  for  the  full  hour, 
which  to  most  of  the  students  passed  very  rapidly.  There  was 
no  display  of  eloquence,  no  attempt  to  clothe  description  or  ex- 
planation in  floral  verse,  but  everything  was  stated  in  terse  and 
succinct  language,  although  with  due  emphasis  on  important 
points,  and  this  it  was  that  made  it  easy  to  follow.  These  class 
lectures  were  naturally  very  different  from  public  addresses,  in 
which  Huxley  always  maintained  that  wonderful  dignity  of  ex- 
pression and  choice  rhetoric  which  have  been  the  despair  of  his 
combatants,  scientific  no  less  than  clerical,  and  have  for  all  time 
rendered  classical  that  which  he  has  chosen  to  put  in  print. 

Contrary  to  what  is  generally  supposed,  Huxley  was  not  a 
ready  speaker,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more  true  to  say  that  his 
deliverances  were  not  unaccompanied  by  stage  fright,  or  a  ner- 
vous uneasiness  which  frequently  required  for  its  subjugation 
a  strong  mental  effort.  It  was  this  that  told  heavily  on  his 
health,  and  more  than  once  the  quiet  resolve  had  been  made  to 
forever  abandon  the  public  platform.  I  was  present  on  one 
occasion  at  a  rather  extensive  gathering  where,  following  a  few 
after-dinner  remarks  by  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  Professor  Tyndall, 


HEILPRIN'S  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  HUXLEY    361 

and  Sir  Wyville  Thomson,  Huxley,  contrary  to  previous  agree- 
ment, was  also  called  upon  for  a  few  words,  and  with  the  pleas- 
ing introduction  (as  nearly  as  I  can  now  recall  the  passage), 
'  There  is  one  among  us  whom,  by  reason  of  his  witty  tongue  and 
ever-readiness,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  call  upon.' 

Following  the  applause  which  greeted  his  name  —  the  men- 
tion of  which  was  unmistakably  a  disagreeable  surprise  to  the 
one  more  particularly  concerned  —  Huxley  took  occasion  to  ex- 
plain in  emphatic  language  that  were  it  only  generally  known 
how  much  of  an  effort  it  cost  him  to  speak,  his  friends  would 
willingly  allow  him  more  peace,  and  save  the  lingering  wreck 
of  his  bodily  frame.  This  admission  —  which  was  followed 
by  a  short  but  most  happy  ex-tempore  utterance  —  appeared  to 
me  so  strange  that  I  was  determined  on  the  first  proper  occasion 
to  obtain  at  first  hand  its  true  meaning.  The  opportunity  pre- 
sented itself  a  few  days  later,  immediately  after  the  conclusion 
of  a  stirring  public  address  (read  from  manuscript)  on  '  Sun- 
day Opening/  if  by  this  name  we  may  designate  the  liberty  of 
displaying  and  using  on  the  Sabbath-day  collections  of  bopks 
and  paintings,  museum  and  other  treasures,  and  of  listening  to 
scientific  discourses.  Dean  Stanley  and  one  or  two  other 
speakers  had  preceded  him,  but  manifestly  the  audience  was 
waiting  for  the  speaker  of  the  occasion.  A  more  brilliant  and 
incisive  arraignment  of  those  who  by  legal  process  attempted 
to  forever  remove  from  the  workingman  his  one  day  of  self -im- 
provement could  hardly  have  been  formulated,  and  the  speaker 
was  greeted  with  vociferous  applause.  Meeting  him  on  the  way 
homeward  from  the  lecture  hall,  I  asked  for  a  significance  of 
the  explanation  made  a  few  evenings  before  at  the  dinner  table, 
for  it  did  not  seem  possible  to  me  that  one  gifted  with  such  fluent 
powers  of  speech,  and  backed  by  an  almost  unfathomable  fund 
of  knowledge,  could  feel  any  fear  or  hesitancy  in  speaking,  no 
matter  what  the  occasion.  In  his  answer,  Professor  Huxley 
repeated  in  substance  what  he  had  before  said,  only  more  clearly 
emphasizing  the  nervous  fear  with  which  he  mounted  the  plat- 
form. He  then  assured  me  that  he  might  have  saved  himself  an 
African  journey,  undertaken  for  health  recuperation,  had  he  ab- 
stained from  public  deliverances. 

It  has  been  frequently  assumed  that  Huxley  cared  for  little 


362  ANGELO  HEILPRI^ 

beyond  science,  and  especially  for  that  side  of  it  which  was  com- 
bative either  with  the  Church  or  with  the  State,  but  nothing 
could  be  further  from  the  truth  than  the  belief  that  this  was  in 
fact  the  case.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  Huxley  used  all  the  vigor 
of  speech  of  which  he  was  capable  to  emphasize  what  he  consid- 
ered to  be  the  proper  position  of  science  in  any  education,  and 
perhaps  he  even  considered  the  acquisition  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge to  be  of  more  importance  than  any  other  form  of  learning, 
but  he  was  always  careful  to  emphasize  that  education  was  only 
such  when  it  was  broad  and  comprehensive,  when  it  comprised 
not  only  science,  but  in  addition  a  goodly  share  of  the  world's 
history  and  literature.  His  own  resource  in  the  fields  of  liter- 
ature (English,  French,  German,  and  Italian)  and  history 
was  prodigious,  and  he  rarely  was  at  a  loss  to  instantly  take 
advantage  of  a  citation  from  some  early  scholar  to  demolish  at 
first  or  second  hand  an  adversary  at  arms.  When  I  was  in 
London  he  was  reading,  with  the  assistance  of  a  friend,  Kus- 
sian,  and  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  fully  familiarizing  himself 
with  the  work  of  the  great  anatomist,  A.  Kovalevski,  whose 
writings  he  was  seemingly  the  first  to  bring  to  the  critical 
notice  of  English-speaking  naturalists.  It  was  this  thorough 
familiarity  with  what  one  is  almost  tempted  to  call  universal 
knowledge  that  made  Professor  Huxley  such  a  dreaded  foe  to 
his  enemies,  and  it  has  well  been  remarked,  *  Woe  be  to  him 
who  attempts  to  measure  arms  with  such  an  antagonist ! ' 

Huxley  was  a  firm  believer  in  thorough  knowledge,  and  he 
took  no  stock  in  brain-stuffing;  to  have  known  a  thing  once, 
and  to  be  able  to  put  your  hand  upon  it  when  you  again  want 
it,  was  his  maxim.  The  opening  address  delivered  by  him  be- 
fore the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  in  1876,  gives  the  keynote 
to  his  position  in  the  matter  of  special  training.  '  Know  a 
thing  directly/  he  often  remarked,  '  and  do  not  assume  that 
you  know  more  of  it  by  knowing  around  it.'  He  had  no 
patience  with  those  who  spoke  with  a  pseudo-authority  begotten 
of  chance,  and  was  bitter  in  his  denunciation  of  officialism  as 
affording  a  pretext  for  either  defending  or  attacking  scientific 
dogma.  An  interesting  anecdote,  which  Professor  Huxley  him- 
self related  to  me,  shows  the  occasional  happy  frame  of  mind 
in  which  our  savant  found  himself  when  he,  in  turn,  was  re- 


HEILPRIN'S  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  HUXLEY    363 

ceiving  blows.  A  prominent  bishop  of  the  English  Church, 
whose  name  it  is  not  here  necessary  to  mention,  had  been  for 
some  time  endeavoring  to  smash  the  Darwinian  hypothesis 
through  some  actual  researches  in  zoology  which  he  claimed  to 
have  undertaken.  Toward  the  accomplishment  of  this  laudable 
effort  he  used  many  pages  of  the  current  magazines  and  equally 
many  columns  of  the  daily  press,  in  each  of  which  the  ( under- 
nurse  of  Darwinism '  came  in  for  an  uncommonly  large  share 
of.  ridicule.  Finding  that  none  of  these  papers  brought  forth 
any  comment  from  Professor  Huxley,  their  author  in  a  personal 
letter  called  his  attention  to  them,  at  the  same  time  asking  to 
be  advised  as  to  what  particular  course  of  reading  would  most 
readily  enable  him  to  grapple  with  the  various  scientific  ques- 
tions which  at  that  time  agitated  the  world.  Professor  Huxley's 
full  and  laconic  answer  was,  '  Take  a  cockroach  and  dissect  it/ 
No  further  inquiry  came  from  that  source. 

I  once  found  Professor  Huxley  much  depressed  over  a  small 
paragraph  which  also  touched,  and  in  a  very  depreciatory  man- 
ner, the  evolutionary  hypothesis,  which  had  been  contributed 
to  the  daily  press  by  his  friend  Carlyle.  He  greatly  deplored 
the  recklessness  of  the  utterances  contained  in  the  squib,  and 
especially  painful  to  him  was  a  markedly  undignified  reference 
to  the  one  man  for  whom  Huxley  had  a  greater  reverence  than 
for  any  other  —  Charles  Darwin.  To  my  interrogatory  as  to 
whether  he  considered  it  necessary  to  reply  to  the  paragraph, 
he  promptly  and  emphatically  answered,  No ! 

Remorseless  as  Huxley  occasionally  was  in  the  cold  exposi- 
tion of  the  blunders  of  his  colaborers  in  science,  he  was  usually 
very  lenient  to  those  who  pointed  out  his  own  mistakes.  I  re- 
member one  occasion  when  a  post-graduate  student  of  the  Royal 
School  of  Mines,  Patrick  (now  Professor)  Geddes,  intimated 
to  the  professor  that  his  interpretation  of  the  mechanism  of  the 
radula  in  the  common  garden  snail,  as  was  set  forth  in  the 
*  Anatomy  of  Invertebrated  Animals/  was  not  supported  by  the 
newer  laboratory  dissections.  Professor  Huxley's  response  was 
a  request  of  Mr.  Geddes  to  try  a  new  dissection;  it  was  done, 
and  it  was  found  that  the  pupil  was  right  and  the  master  wrong. 
Only  once  do  I  recall  when  a  correction  was  received  with  a 
regret  almost  akin  to  displeasure  —  the  case  of  the  Bathybius, 


364:  ANGELO  HEILPKIN 

the  all-pervading  protoplasm  of  tlie  oceanic  deep.  When  Sir 
Wyville  Thomson  separated  this  substance  as  a  mineral  pre- 
cipitate, it  smashed  a  thought  that  had  already  become  preg- 
nant with  English  and  German  naturalists,  and  which  threat- 
ened to  become  of  genuine  usefulness  in  explaining  the  origin 
and  development  of  the  organic  life  forms  of  the  earth. 

Among  his  many  eminent  scientific  contemporaries  there 
were  few  for  whom  Huxley  had  greater  admiration  than  the 
German  morphologist,  Gegenbaur,  and  Carl  Vogt;  the  latter 
he  regarded  as  a  tower  of  strength  and  in  a  certain  sense  a 
genius.  When,  nearly  two  years  after  leaving  London,  I  re- 
turned to  my  alma  mater  and  informed  my  past  master  that 
I  had  in  the  meantime  been  enrolled  as  a  student,  although  in 
the  class  of  palaeontology  instead  of  zoology,  under  Vogt,  he 
appeared  to  be  really  pleased,  and  expressed  himself  freely  on 
the  advantage  of  being  guided  by  so  eminent  an  authority  and 
so  liberal  a  thinker  as  was  the  self-imposed  exile  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Geneva.  And  in  truth  it  must  be  admitted  that  there 
was  much  in  Vogt  that  reminded  me  of  Huxley.  Like  the 
latter,  he  was  fearlessly  outspoken  in  his  utterances.  Witness 
his  tirade  against  the  late  Emperor  WTilliam  of  Germany,  de- 
livered as  a  protest  against  the  expenditure  of  the  state's  money 
on  bronze  and  iron  cannon  when  it  could  have  been  more  hu- 
manely and  profitably  used  in  the  purchase  of  the  then  recently 
discovered  second  specimen  of  Archwopteryx  —  that  strange 
fossil  hybrid  connecting  bird  and  reptile  which  has  since  found 
its  way  to  the  Berlin  Museum.  Like  his  English  prototype, 
Vogt  was  also  an  admirable  lecturer,  fluent  in  diction  and  facile 
with  the  crayon,  but  it  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  either  the 
quality  or  the  tone  of  his  lectures  was  fully  representative  of 
the  scholarship  of  their  author. 

Vogt  never  allowed  the  opportunity  of  a  pun  to  escape  him, 
and  his  bons  mots  were  at  times  hardly  more  elegant  than  they 
were  appropriate;  but,  for  all  that,  he  was  very  popular,  and 
equally  so  with  the  few  women  students  of  his  class  as  with  the 
men.  He  spoke  in  French  with  a  decided  German  intonation, 
frequently  relieving  himself  of  a  sigh  brought  about  by  an  un- 
comfortably asthmatic  condition.  His  powerful  bodily  frame, 
disproportionably  shortened  through  a  generous  development 


HEILPEIN'S  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  HUXLEY    365 

of  tissue  about  the  equatorial  region,  was  in  marked  contrast 
to  the  tall  and  nearly  upright  carriage  of  Professor  Huxley, 
whose  slightly  stooping  head  and  shoulders  reduced  somewhat 
what  might  otherwise  have  been  considered  a  more  than  average 
height.  Huxley  never  entered  the  class  lecture  room  except  in 
a  dress  in  which  he  was  immediately  prepared  to  go  to  the 
street;  Yogt  rarely  appeared  without  a  coat  which  did  not  in 
one  or  more  places  show  visible  signs  of  underlying  shirt 
sleeves.  The  presence  of  women  in  no  way  affected  his  Wohl- 
gefuhl,  and  in  truth  it  must  be  said  that  this  class  of  students 
was  to  him  in  a  measure  a  blank,  as  he  invariably  addressed  the 
class  only  as  '  'Messieurs.' 

Among  the  many  warm  friends  and  admirers  that  Huxley 
numbered  within  the  ranks  of  the  scientific  fraternity  there  was 
none  who  was  more  enthusiastic  in  his  admiration  of  the  great 
man  than  the  distinguished  comparative  anatomist  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Surgeons,  the  late  Professor  Kitchen  Parker.  An 
afternoon  and  evening  spent  at  the  home  of  this  most  genial 
and  all-overflowing  host  serves  my  memory  as  the  record  of  one 
of  the  pleasantest  incidents  of  my  student  life  in  London. 
Huxley  and  Parker  had  not  many  years  before  announced  their 
new  classification  of  birds  —  worked  out  conjointly  on  charac- 
ters founded  principally  on  the  position  and  construction  of  the 
bones  of  the  palate  and  beak  —  and  the  stir  which  that  radical 
departure  in  classification  brought  out  had  not  yet  subsided. 
Professor  Parker  was  still  largely  engaged  in  proving  his  case, 
and  was  naturally,  to  use  an  expression  that  is  less  elegant  than 
determining,  full  of  it.  The  over  joyful  manner  in  which  he 
pointed  out  a  confirmatory  character  here  and  there,  or  an  ex- 
ception to  the  rule  elsewhere,  kindled  a  glowing  enthusiasm 
within  the  listener  to  follow  in  the  line  of  the  master,  and  a 
desire  to  make  immediate  friends  with  basi-sphenoid  and  ptery- 
goid  bones.  Drawer  after  drawer  of  neatly  prepared  bird  skulls, 
colored  in  correspondence  so  that  identical  or  homologous  parts 
could  be  immediately  detected,  were  pulled  out  and  hastily 
scanned  over;  but  the  explanations  that  were  given,  whatever 
they  might  have  been,  were  liberally  sprinkled  with  admiration 
for  the  genius  of  Huxley  —  who  first  broke  into  the  method 
which  Parker  so  successfully  elaborated  —  a  second  to  whom 


366  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

was  not  to  be  found  in  all  Britain.  I  shall  not  easily  forget  the 
ocular  gleam  of  pleasure,  perhaps  even  delight,  with  which  Pro- 
fessor Parker  announced  dissent  on  certain  anatomical  points 
from  the  opinions  of  his  friend  and  colaborer.  The  following 
very  graceful  tribute  to  the  clearness  of  Professor  Huxley's  ex- 
positions appears  in  this  author's  article  on  Birds,  contributed 
to  the  ninth  edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (page  717) : 
*  The  writer  will  often  use  the  very  words  of  Professor  Huxley, 
despairing  as  he  does  of  coming  near  that  excellent  writer  either 
in  condensation  or  order.' 

Huxley,  as  is  well  known,  was  a  master  hand  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  English  language.  For  elegance  and  force  of  diction 
he  had  no  superior  —  perhaps  not  even  an  equal  —  among  the 
writers  of  his  day,  and  there  are  few  purely  literary  men  whose 
productions  maintain  so  uniformly  a  high  quality  of  excellence. 
In  borrowing  from  the  decorative  side  of  language,  he  never 
allowed  the  embellishment  of  phrases  to  interfere  with  the  clear 
statement  of  what  he  had  to  convey  either  by  word  of  mouth  or 
of  pen,  or  to  in  any  way  cloud  his  meaning.  Friends  and  foes 
thus  knew  his  position  precisely,  and  he  was  always  taken  on 
his  own  recognizance.  A  strict  adherence  to  the  sequence  of 
truth,  fact,  and  a  logical  deduction  from  facts,  was  his  maxim, 
and  it  was  this  that  assured  his  ground  for  battle,  and  carried 
him  triumphantly  through  nearly  all  his  combats.  As  has  be- 
fore been  remarked,  Huxley  took  little  stock  in  brain-stuffing,  yet 
it  can  in  no  way  be  complained  of  that  his  own  brain  was  '  of 
the  empty  kind.'  The  range  of  topics  that  his  conversation 
touched  was  almost  bewildering,  yet  so  discreetly  was  his  knowl- 
edge dispensed  that  oftentimes  one  assumed  that  he  was  making 
an  inquiry,  when,  in  fact,  he  was  giving  the  answer  to  it.  Well 
do  I  recall  a  meeting  on  Brompton  Road  when  the  conversation 
almost  immediately  turned  upon  American  racing  and  race 
horses,  a  topic  on  which  I  was  obliged  to  confess  myself  an 
absolute  ignoramus  by  the  side  of  my  interlocutor. 

A  few  parting  words.  In  1893  I  had  the  pleasure  of  being 
constituted  one  of  a  committee  of  five  on  the  award  of  the 
Hayden  Memorial  Medal  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences 
of  Philadelphia  —  a  medal  (and  accompanying  fund)  awarded 
for  meritorious  work  in  the  domain  of  geology  and  palaeontology. 


HEILPEIN'S  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  HUXLEY    367 

The  award  was  made  unanimously,  and  almost  without  dis- 
cussion, to  Professor  Huxley,  and  his  name  thus  appears  in 
association  with  the  names  of  James  Hall,  Cope,  Suess  (of 
Vienna),  and  Daubree  (of  Paris),  other  recipients  and  masters 
in  a  field  with  which  the  labors  of  Professor  Huxley  are  not  very 
generally  associated.  The  following  characteristic  reply,  ac- 
knowledging the  receipt  of  the  award,  was  addressed  to  the 
Academy. 

GENTLEMEN  :  The  Hayden  Memorial  Medal,  with  your  draft 
(which  will  incorporate  itself  into  an  ornament  for  my  wife's 
drawing  room),  reached  me  the  first  of  the  month,  a  New- Year's 
gift  of  a  value  quite  unexampled  in  my  experience.  I  am  very 
sensible  of  the  great  honor  which  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sci- 
ences of  Philadelphia  has  conferred  upon  me  —  a  retired  vet- 
eran who  has  much  reason  to  suspect  that  he  has  already  received 
quite  as  much  promotion  as  he  has  deserved. 

But  increasing  years,  if  they  bring  a  diminution  of  variety  (I 
am  not  sure  they  do),  leave  the  desire  for  the  esteem  of  those 
who  have  a  right  to  judge  us  intact,  perhaps  intensify  it;  and 
I  beg  leave  to  assure  you  and  your  colleagues  —  fellow-workers 
of  Hayden  and  Leidy  —  that  the  kindly  and  sympathetic  terms 
of  your  award  have  given  me  very  great  pleasure. 

With  all  respect,  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  gentlemen, 
Your  obedient  servant  and  colleague, 

THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY. 

It  is  not  for  the  student  to  sum  up  either  the  quality  or  the 
quantity  of  the  labors  of  his  teacher  and  master,  but  for  those 
who  still  doubt  —  and  there  are  some  such  —  the  justice  of  the 
position  which  has  by  almost  common  consent  been  given  to  Hux- 
ley in  the  realm  of  science,  it  may  be  recommended  as  a  healthy 
exercise  to  carefully  read  the  titles  of  the  hundreds  of  papers 
with  which  this  indefatigable  writer,  for  the  better  part  of  half 
a  century,  has  crowded  the  pages  of  scientific  journals  and  popu- 
lar magazines ;  and  after  that,  with  equal  care,  the  inquirer  into 
fame  will  take  an  advantageous  turn  in  mastering  the  papers  to 
which  these  titles  relate.  Huxley  was  great  not  because  he  cor- 
rectly deciphered  the  history  of  a  fossil  bone,  not  because  he 


368  ANGELO  HEILPKItf 

probed  deep  into  the  anatomical  or  physiological  mysteries  of 
the  living  world,  nor  yet  for  the  reason  that  he  was  well-nigh  the 
first  —  one  might  say,  indeed,  the  first  —  to  pound  the  truths 
and  consequences  of  evolution  into  the  material  world,  but  be- 
cause in  addition  to  these  accomplishments,  and  much  more, 
he  molded  the  tendencies  of  modern  thought,  and  to  a  greater 
extent  than  any  scientist  of  his  generation  with  the  exception 
of  Charles  Darwin.  Well  could  this  great  philosopher  observe 
that,  had  it  not  been  for  Huxley,  the  acceptance  of  the  evolu- 
tionary hypothesis  would  have  been  removed  from  us  by  prob- 
ably at  least  a  generation." 


XII 
A   PKOPOSED   INTERNATIONAL   UNIVERSITY 

A  subject  which  at  various  times  engaged  Mr.  Heilprin's 
serious  attention  was  treated  by  him  in  the  following  paper  in 
The  Forum  of  March,  1900.  It  was  entitled  "  The  Ignorance 
of  Education  and  the  Project  of  an  International  University." 

"  The  question  as  to  what  ought  to  constitute  the  '  higher ' 
education  of  a  tolerant  civilization  will  probably  for  all  time 
be  debated  and  considered  a  debatable  one.  Waves  of  reform 
in  studies  will  rise  and  fall,  and  each  generation  is  likely  to 
witness  some  marked  improvement  or  advance  upon  the  sys- 
tems that  were  in  vogue  with  the  suffering  students  of  the 
generation  before.  Methods  and  studies  *  new '  are  launched 
by  pedagogues  the  world  over  upon  the  sea  of  education,  just  as 
new  dresses  are  flung  upon  the  manikins  of  fashion  to  redeem 
the  crudities  of  the  style  that  has  just  passed.  Systems  of  liter- 
ary reading,  cyclopaedias  of  best  thought,  are  hurled  at  the 
hungry  public,  just  as  the  multiplication  table  used  to  be  flung 
at  the  complaisant  lad  of  the  time  when  the  '  new  arithmetic ' 
was  still  an  unknown  quantity.  The  processes  of  analytic  de- 
termination have  crowded  out  those  of  the  receptive  faculty, 
and  we  pride  ourselves  on  the  knowing  of  the  whyfore  and 
wherefore  of  everything.  Verily,  it  might  be  said  that  we  stand 
on  the  threshold  of  all  knowledge,  and  that  the  sphinx  of  silence 
has  become  only  a  relic  of  ancient  history. 

Has  it  in  truth  come  to  this?  Is  the  present  generation  so 
much  wiser  as  the  result  of  its  scholastic  training  that  it  can 
afford  to  look  back  upon  that  which  preceded  with  the  feeling 
that  the  present  has  buried  the  past,  and  that  compassion  only 
need  be  written  over  the  tombstone  ? 

From  time  to  time  a  protest  is  heard  to  this  declaration  in 


370  ANGELO  HEILPRIK 

the  feeling  that  the  university  man,  judged  at  least  in  a  scale 
of  comparative  efficiency,  is  unfitted  to  execute  many  of  the 
charges  which  the  ordinary  walks  of  life  entail  upon  mankind ; 
that  his  mind,  instead  of  remaining  free  for  thought,  is  crabbed 
with  a  method  that  has  been  forced  upon  it ;  and  that  the  facts 
with  which  it  has  been  stored  are  those  which  bring  remunera- 
tion neither  to  body  nor  to  soul.  However  much  one  may  feel 
disposed  to  set  aside  such  an  allegation,  every  honest  educator 
will  admit  to  himself  that  there  is  something  of  truth  in  the 
criticism,  and  perhaps  even  more  than  he  may  feel  disposed  to 
confess.  A  feeling  of  unrest  seizes  upon  him  with  each  new 
disclosure  of  disqualification,  or  that  which  is  asserted  to  be 
such,  and  he  racks  his  brain  in  order  to  discover  what  new 
weapon  of  defence  might  be  evolved  from  the  pedagogical  acorn. 
It  is  this  that  has  made  the  words  '  pedagogics '  and  '  peda- 
gogical '  such  tyrants  in  the  language  of  to-day,  and  has  made 
them  powerful  with  the  all-circular  educational  conventions  and 
the  self-satisfying  l  teachers'  institutes.'  With  the  public  at 
large  they  are  less  popular,  and  to  some,  it  must  be  confessed, 
their  deliverance  brings  a  feeling  almost  akin  to  nausea. 

When  one  seeks  to  ascertain  the  value  or  non-value  of  the 
university  education,  such  as  we  now  recognize  it,  more  par- 
ticularly in  this  country,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  bring  forward  the 
strength  of  the  learning  that  has  been  acquired,  nor  the  diver- 
sity of  topic  that  has  been  reached ;  for  the  calculation  of  de- 
ficiencies is  a  more  nearly  satisfying  measure  of  the  service 
that  has  been  put  into  three  or  four  years  of  the  best  period 
of  academic  life.  In  this  connection,  it  may  be  recommended 
as  a  healthful  exercise  for  the  student  of  the  class  of  1898- 
1899  to  ascertain  for  himself  to  what  extent  he  may  have  been 
familiar,  historically,  geographically,  linguistically,  and  from 
the  side  of  nature,  with  the  regions  of  the  earth's  surface 
which  have  latterly  engaged  the  attention  of  more  than  one 
of  the  great  nations  of  the  globe  —  Cuba,  the  Philippines, 
Puerto  Rico,  the  Transvaal,  and  the  northwest  of  the  North 
American  continent.  It  is  claimed,  that  Java  was  ceded  to  the 
Dutch,  in  1816,  because  England's  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
could  not  locate  the  island  on  the  map ;  and  in  nearly  the  same 
way  it  may  be  said  that  a  nation  of  75,000,000  inhabitants 


A  PEOPOSED  INTERNATIONAL  UNIVERSITY    371 

plunged  into  war  with  a  distant  land  and  people,  concerning 
which  an  ignorance  prevailed  that  was  as  astonishing  as  the 
blunders  to  which  it  gave  rise  were  distressing.  And  this  ig- 
norance permeated  not  alone  the  'classes/  but  all  the  de- 
partments which  make  up  the  active  machinery  of  the  national 
government. 

And  yet,  the  Philippines  are  neither  a  desert  nor  a  mere  oasis 
of  the  Pacific;  their  population  being  perhaps  not  far  from 
one-seventh  of  that  of  the  entire  United  States,  and  nearly 
equal  to  that  of  Mexico.  At  about  the  period  of  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities  Manila,  the  chief  port  and  capital,  had  a  population 
of  perhaps  250,000  souls,  or  somewhat  more  than  that  of 
Genoa;  and  its  commerce,  calculated  for  both  exports  and  im- 
ports, played  no  unimportant  role  in  the  economic  relations  of 
the  globe.  It  is  probably  not  overstepping  the  mark  to  say  that  at 
the  beginning  of  1898  not  five  university  students  out  of  a  thou- 
sand could  have  given  any  information  regarding  these  islands 
which  might  have  been  considered  worth  knowing.  And  though 
the  government  of  a  nation,  which  has  implanted  upon  its  free 
soil  not  less  than  a  hundred  universities  or  higher  colleges,  may 
have  found  it  necessary  to  dispatch  special  commissioners  to 
'  study  up '  the  region,  and  to  dispel  in  part  the  obscurity  that 
surrounded  it,  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  there  had  not  been 
made  up  to  that  time  any  detailed  study  of  those  islands,  or 
that  the  literature  pertaining  to  them  was  inaccessible.  But  it 
had  not  yet  reached  the  centres  of  our  institutions  of  learning. 

With  the  invasion  of  Cuba  we  had  an  army  —  if  we  are  fully 
to  credit  the  reports  of  the  commanding  officers  —  entering  into 
the  '  wilds '  of  a  near-by  land  with  maps  hardly  better  than 
those  of  the  crudest  atlases,  to  assist  in  the  work  of  military 
exploration;  and  the  maps  furnished  to  the  navy  appear  to 
have  been  but  little  better.  This  is  surpassing  strange  when  it 
is  recalled  that  Cuba  lies  just  off  the  United  States,  and  fre- 
quently, during  the  last  thirty  years,  has  given  rise  to  disquiet- 
ing rumors  as  to  a  possible  engulfment  by  the  United  States. 

This  ignorance  of  matters  geographical,  except  as  coming 
back  in  the  form  of  a  disagreeable  personal  humiliation,  is 
hardly  surprising  to  the  non-university  observer;  for  he  has 
long  since  recognized  that  our  higher  institutions  of  learning 


372  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

stand  above  the  plane  of  geographical  teaching.  It  is  true  that 
from  time  to  time  we  scan  from  publishers'  lists  the  advent  of 
some  geography  to  which  the  educating  author  has  affixed  the 
word  '  new ' ;  and  the  hope  is  entertained  that  the  '  new 
geography '  will  finally  supply  a  long-felt  want.  But  it  takes 
little  examination  of  these  works  to  show  that  their  newness 
is  largely  of  the  bald  and  ancient  type ;  and  the  study  of  geog- 
raphy, where  there  is  such  a  study  at  all,  continues  in  our 
schools  and  colleges  as  geography  with  geography  left  out,  run- 
ning closely  parallel  in  its  method  with  the  study  of  history. 
It  may  be  seriously  questioned  if  there  are  three  institutions 
of  academic  learning  in  the  entire  United  States  where,  at  the 
present  time,  sound  geographical  information  can  be  obtained 
covering  the  countries  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  or 
where  thought  is  expended  upon  the  political  or  ethnographic 
relations  existing  there. 

Of  all  the  lapses  in  our  university  training  perhaps  none  is 
so  glaring  as  that  which  touches  just  this  '  earth  knowledge,' 
or,  as  it  is  more  happily  expressed  by  the  German,  '  Erdkunde.' 
We  learn  sufficiently  of  Greek,  but  know  nothing  of  Greece, 
either  ancient  or  modern ;  we  may  acquire  something  of  French 
and  German,  or  even  master  these  languages,  and  yet  know 
practically  nothing  of  either  France  or  Germany,  no  more  than 
our  study  of  Oriental  languages  teaches  us  of  the  East.  It  is 
only  with  the  outbreak  of  a  sudden  movement  that  we  begin 
to  '  brush  up ' ;  and  it  has  frequently  been  remarked  that 
wars  afford  a  providential  means  of  acquiring  geographical 
knowledge. 

How  the  German  geographical  and  historical  method  con- 
trasts with  this  appears  from  a  review  of  the  educational 
process  which  has  recently  been  published  in  Petermann's  Mit- 
teilungen.  At  not  less  than  forty  German  and  Austrian  uni- 
versities and  higher  academies  the  study  of  countries  and 
peoples  is  given  an  uppermost  place  in  the  curriculum  of  edu- 
cation. At  the  University  of  Berlin  alone  there  are  not  less 
than  fifteen  chairs  or  courses  of  ethno-geographical  teaching,  not 
including  here  the  more  strictly  defined  courses  in  geology  and 
physical  geography ;  and  the  Seminary  for  Oriental  Languages, 
in  the  same  city,  furnishes  for  the  winter  semester  of  1899- 


A  PROPOSED  INTERNATIONAL  UNIVERSITY    373 

1900  ten  courses  in  the  study  of  the  geography,  history,  and 
ethnology  of  modern  Greece,  Syria,  Persia,  China,  Japan,  east- 
ern and  western  Africa,  and  the  Sudan.  Much  the  same  diver- 
sity and  breadth  of  subject  are  found  in  the  teachings  of  the 
Universities  of  Leipsic  and  Vienna;  and  it  is  extraordinary 
what  a  wealth  of  subject  is  outlined  by  the  professors  even 
of  the  minor  universities  for  their  courses  of  the  coming  year. 

Not  many  years  ago  our  War  Department  admitted  that  much 
the  best  general  maps  of  the  United  States  were  those  to  be 
found  in  the  German  atlases.  But  enormous  strides  have  been 
made  in  the  official  maps  of  our  country  during  the  last  few 
years,  causing  them  to  compare  favorably  in  accuracy  of  detail 
and  execution  with  nearly  the  best  of  their  kind  issued  else- 
where. No  bettter  way  of  satisfying  one's  self  with  regard  to 
the  amplitude  and  exactness  of  the  German  geographical 
treatment  of  a  country  can  be  had  than  by  examining  the 
*  Baedeker  '  for  the  United  States,  and  by  comparing  the  detail, 
cartographical  and  descriptive,  which  appears  in  that  publication 
(of  the  Adirondacks,  of  the  Yellowstone  and  Yosemite,  or  of 
the  different  cities,  for  example)  with  similar  work  in  corre- 
sponding American  or  English  publications. 

Special  stress  has  here  been  laid  upon  the  deficiencies  of  this 
particular  branch  of  learning,  because,  everywhere,  they  glar- 
ingly stare  us  in  the  face.  Millions  of  square  miles  of  the  in- 
habited earth's  surface  are  as  unknown  to  the  average  university 
graduate  as  is  the  bottom  of  the  sea  or  the  top  of  the  atmosphere ; 
and  tens  of  millions  of  the  earth's  inhabitants  enjoy  an  obscurity 
in  the  cerebral  whirl  as  complete  as  that  which  marks  the  con- 
ception of  sky-scrapers  and  railroads  in  the  brain  of  the  Eskimo. 
But  it  is  not  alone  here  that  we  are  sadly  deficient.  Into  the 
domain  of  science,  to  which  so  much  attention  is  properly  given 
at  this  time,  we  carry  a  misguided  method  which  is  most  dis- 
tressing in  its  results.  We,  or  at  least  many  of  us,  may  be  pro- 
ficient in  the  dissection  of  a  cockroach  or  mussel,  know  the 
ganglia  in  the  sympathetic  system  of  a  rabbit,  and  even  talk 
understandingly  of  the  relations  of  blastoderm,  gastrula,  and 
hypoderm.  But  much  the  larger  proportion  of  those  who  bear 
diplomas  fail  to  recognize  even  the  commonest  of  the  birds  of 
the  field  either  by  song  or  form;  and  as  to  the  habits  and  life 


374  ASTGELO  HEILPRIN 

of  animals  generally,  the  common  knowledge  is  of  such  a  nature 
that  it  might  almost  as  well  be  dispensed  with  altogether.  Our 
botanical  laboratories  teach  us  properly  of  sap-circulation  and 
embryo;  and  under  the  microtome  we  bring  plant  tissue  to 
nearly  its  finite  particle,  so  far  as  study  is  concerned.  But  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  much  the  larger  number  of  those  who  leave 
their  alma  mater  equipped  for  the  higher  life  cannot  in  the  field 
distinguish  between  a  birch  and  a  poplar,  or  between  a  spruce 
and  a  pine. 

We  study  minutely  the  details  of  'world'  history,  follow 
the  fortunes  of  commanders  of  a  thousand  or  two  thousand  years 
ago  to  the  year  and  month,  and  in  some  cases  almost  to  the  day, 
and  treasure  up  the  episodes  of  war  and  conquest  with  a  nicety 
that  is  almost  touching  in  its  tenderness;  but  the  works  of  the 
masters  of  art,  whether  of  painting,  sculpture,  architecture, 
music,  or  the  drama,  whose  refining  or  vivifying  influence  is 
so  directly  exerted  upon  mankind,  find  but  the  scantiest  foot- 
hold in  our  repertoire  of  collegiate  studies.  In  this  regard,  in- 
deed, many  of  the  private  schools  and  seminaries  far  outdo  the 
more  potent  institutions  of  higher  learning.  The  pleasure  to 
life  that  could  readily  be  given  to  hundreds  of  thousands  by  a 
systematic  course  in  drawing  and  painting,  not  to  mention  the 
direct  practical  benefits,  is  forfeited  to  the  advantage  of  other 
studies  which  neither  truly  interest  nor  inspire,  and  whose  bene- 
fits (if  there  are  such)  are  dissipated  within  the  first  few  weeks 
after  graduation. 

All  these  deficiencies  may,  indeed,  be  considered  trivial  by 
those  who  hold  that  the  higher  education  should  take  no  cog- 
nizance of  the  commonplace  and  the  material ;  but  the  scholar, 
however  well  he  may  be  equipped  with  a  knowledge  of  Greek 
and  Latin  roots,  with  the  formulas  of  the  Rig  Veda,  and  with 
psychological  inductions,  who  is  suddenly  confronted  in  the 
field  with  growths  of  oats  and  rye,  and  cannot  distinguish  be- 
tween them,  or  who  does  not  know  even  in  minutest  degree  the 
conditions  governing  farming  or  agriculture,  is  hardly  in  a  way 
to  excite  enthusiasm  for  study  among  the  multitude,  who  consti- 
tute the  rural  population  of  every  country.  'Reuben'  from 
the  country  is  hardly  more  of  a  '  jay '  in  the  city  than  is  the 
average  college  graduate  a  { jake  '  in  the  country. 


A  PEOPOSED  INTERNATIONAL  UNIVERSITY    375 

One  can  readily  anticipate  the  part-answer  that  might  be 
made  to  the  criticisms  which  have  here  been  advanced ;  namely, 
that  the  university  affords  the  opportunity  for  the  study  of  the 
branches  in  which  a  deficiency  has  been  remarked.  It  is  not, 
however,  a  question  as  to  what  it  offers,  but  of  what  it  gives 
to  the  vast  majority  of  students,  and  what  the  students  take 
from  it.  In  its  present  state,  with  tendencies  clinging  to  it  from 
a  remote  past,  it  is  inchoate  in  both  form  and  substance.  What 
it  will  be  in  the  future  it  is  impossible  to  predicate ;  but  that  it 
could  be  readily  improved  in  its  humanizing,  directing,  and 
practical  tendencies,  and  give  more  of  a  knowledge  that  is  worth 
having  than  what  it  now  gives,  is  as  certain  as  that  the  sun  will 
set. 

At  a  time  when  so  much  effort  is  expended  looking  to  the 
betterment  of  present  educational  institutions,  it  may  perhaps 
not  be  amiss  to  force  an  example,  and  to  abjure  almost  in  toto 
the  system  that  has  so  long  dominated  the  university.  The  first 
essential  of  an  education  is  to  know  something ;  the  second  is  to 
know  the  most  of  that  which  is  most  worth  knowing.  The  prob- 
lem is,  then,  how  to  acquire  the  most  The  fact,  however 
agreeably  or  disagreeably  received,  has  long  been  recognized, 
that  personal  contact  and  practical  demonstration  or  experi- 
mentation are  to  most  students  much  the  safest  road  to  the  ac- 
quiring of  knowledge;  and  the  proposition  of  contact-study, 
except  as  a  purely  theoretical  conception,  calls  for  no  further 
discussion.  Only  the  question  of  how  the  greatest  amount  of 
contact  can  be  established  requires  particular  consideration. 

The  suggestion  is  here  thrown  out  that  a  university,  instead 
of  retaining  its  simple  national  character,  be  converted  into  one 
with  international  characteristics;  the  cooperation  of  different 
nations  being  invited  to  secure  the  furtherance  of  this  end. 
There  seems  to  be  no  particular  reason  why  a  three  or  four  years' 
course  should  be  tempered  exclusively  by  the  atmosphere  of  a 
single  city  or  country.  No  one  will  question  that  the  same 
period  of  time  judiciously  applied  to  study  in  different  coun- 
tries, and  with  studies  standing  in  the  main  in  direct  relation 
to  the  environment,  must  produce  results  of  a  much  more  sub- 
stantial and  lasting  character  than  those  with  which  we  have 
been  so  long  familiar  as  the  outcome  of  the  present  system. 


376  ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

Eight  months'  study  in  Germany  of  the  German  language,  of 
the  country  and  people  at  large,  of  German  literature,  history, 
art,  and  manufactures,  followed  by  a  similar  course,  whether  of 
greater  or  less  length,  in  France,  England,  Italy,  Switzerland, 
cannot  fail  to  be  decisive  in  at  least  many  of  its  aspects.  And, 
in  the  end,  the  student,  let  him  be  ever  so  stupid  or  perverse, 
must  acquire  something  to  which  he  can  look  with  real  advan- 
tage. Rome  studied  from  the  Forum  is  very  different  from 
Rome  studied  from  class-books,  just  as  widely  separated  as 
would  be  the  study  of  modern  France  in  the  monuments  of 
Paris  from  written  history,  or  that  of  the  living  glacier  of 
Switzerland  or  the  active  volcano  about  Naples  from  the  text 
furnished  by  geological  text-books.  A  little  of  real  Russia  is 
worth  a  ton  of  theoretical  Russia,  and  much  more  than  that 
amount  of  many  other  studies  which  to-day  so  largely  engross 
the  time  of  the  university  student  and  lead  to  practically  noth- 
ing. Moreover,  the  advantage  of  studying  under  wholly  differ- 
ent masters  presents  itself  as  an  obvious  proposition. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  outline  a  course  of 
international  university  training,  or  to  indicate  the  methods  by 
which  it  might  be  most  readily  brought  about.  It  is  enough  to 
know  that  such  a  project  lies  well  within  the  zone  of  practica- 
bility, and  is  already  narrowly  anticipated  in  the  '  travelling ' 
system  which  attains  with  the  German  universities.  A  pre- 
arranged system  of  main  studies  for  the  different  countries, 
designed  also  to  include  a  certain  number  of  studies  as  are  not 
distinctly  geographical  or  historical  in  their  relations,  can  easily 
be  formulated,  and  made  equally  applicable  to  students  of  all 
nations.  Few,  then,  of  the  general  branches  would  remain  over 
for  a  '  finishing '  year  at  the  home  college,  or  for  that  period  of 
time  which  may  be  considered  necessary  to  compass  them. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  plan  here  outlined  contemplates 
personal  expenditure  far  beyond  what  is  now  incurred  at  the 
different  seats  of  learning  at  home,  and  that  in  a  prohibitory 
aspect  it  might  act  rather  as  a  deterrent  than  as  an  incentive  to 
the  acquiring  of  knowledge.  What  this  excess  of  expenditure 
may  amount  to  cannot  easily  be  calculated  to  a  narrow  margin ; 
but  it  would  probably  not  be  such  as  to  overreach  the  capacities 
of  most  university  students.  And  it  may  be  taken  for  certain 


A  PKOPOSED  INTERNATIONAL  UNIVERSITY    377 

that  the  courses  need  not  be  made  more  costly  than  the  courses 
at  some  of  the  university  centres  to-day.  A  judiciously  con- 
ducted study-course  of  two  years  following  both  banks  of  the 
Mediterranean  would  be  worth  much  more  to  most  students  than 
any  combination  of  four  years  that  we  can  extract  from  our 
existing  university  courses. 

No  account  has  here  been  taken  of  the  purely  professional 
studies,  full  successional  courses  in  which  are  conditions  deter- 
mining proficiency.  Such  will  necessarily  be  taught  in  special 
schools,  or  schools  of  specialties,  just  as  law,  mining,  and  medi- 
cine are  taught  to-day.  And  as  Professor  Huxley  has  charac- 
teristically stated  the  point,  the  more  the  intending  specialist 
studies  of  his  own  branch  and  leaves  the  consideration  of  other 
branches  for  assistance  or  to  possibilities  afterwards,  so  much 
the  better  for  the  student  and  his  following." 


XIII 
HIS  DEATH  AND  TRIBUTES  TO  HIS  MEMORY 

One  of  the  last  papers  from  Angelo  Heilprin's  prolific  pen, 
an  article  on  the  Catskill  Mountains,  appeared  in  the  Bulletin 
of  the  American  Geographical  Society,  for  April,  1907  —  only 
three  months  before  his  death. 

He  had  returned  from  South  America  greatly  weakened  in 
health.  His  heart  was  seriously  affected  and  the  end  was  mani- 
festly near.  He  lingered  for  two  months  at  the  house  of  his 
sister,  Mrs.  A.  P.  Loveman,  in  New  York,  until  death  came  to 
his  relief.  He  died  on  July  17,  1907,  at  the  early  age  of  fifty- 
four.  Dr.  Theodore  Le  Boutillier,  Mr.  H.  L.  Bridgman  and 
Mr.  Louis  E.  Levy  spoke  feelingly  at  the  funeral. 

Angelo  Heilprin's  character  and  achievement  were  becomingly 
commemorated  at  a  meeting  held  in  Philadelphia  on  November 
6,  1907,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Geographical  Society  of  that 
city.  The  society,  in  which  he  was  greatly  interested,  had  been 
founded  largely  upon  his  initiative. 

Dr.  Edward  J.  Nolan  summarized  the  work  done  by  Angelo 
Heilprin  in  connection  with  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences. 
The  following  are  extracts  from  the  other  addresses  made  on 
that  occasion. 

Professor  Russell  H.  Chittenden,  Director  of  the  Sheffield 
Scientific  School,  Yale  University,  said: 

"Professor  Heilprin's  formal  connection  with  the  Sheffield 
Scientific  School  began  in  1904  when  he  was  appointed  lecturer 
in  physical  geography.  From  that  date  one-third  of  each  college 
year  was  spent  at  New  Haven,  and  I  came  to  know  him  with 
a  degree  of  intimacy  that  served  to  reveal  many  of  the  sterling 
qualities  of  heart  and  mind,  which  all  who  knew  him  clearly 
recognized.  With  our  students  he  was  most  popular,  for  they 


HIS  DEATH  AND  TKIBUTES  TO  HIS  MEMORY   379 

quickly  learned  that  he  had  intimate  knowledge  of  the  subjects 
on  which  he  lectured ;  a  personal  acquaintance  with  the  natural 
phenomena  he  so  clearly  depicted,  which  served  to  stimulate 
attention  and  interest,  and  led  many  a  man  to  a  fuller  appre- 
ciation of  the  importance  and  significance  of  a  study  of  Nature. 
Indeed,  who  could  listen  to  Angelo  Heilprin  and  not  be  im- 
pressed by  his  great  breadth  of  knowledge,  and  especially  by  his 
enthusiastic  interest  in  the  subject  to  which  his  life  was  pri- 
marily devoted.  His  enthusiasm  was  contagious,  and  many  a 
man  who,  at  the  outset,  had  little  or  no  interest  in  the  subject  to 
be  discussed  would,  on  the  completion  of  the  course,  show  in  an 
unmistakable  manner  the  effects  of  the  enthusiastic  teaching  of 
the  master. 

Angelo  Heilprin  in  his  own  work  was  a  stranger  to  half- 
hearted effort ;  intermittent  attention  to  duty  was  not  one  of  his 
characteristics.  He  belonged  rather  to  that  small  group  of  men 
who  appreciate  the  importance  of  insistent  and  consistent  effort. 
He  realized  that  opportunities  are  to  be  improved  to  the  utmost, 
that  success  can  come  only  from  earnest  effort,  in  harmony  with 
that  saying  in  Ecclesiastes,  '  whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do, 
do  it  with  all  thy  might.'  When  Peary,  in  his  search  for  the 
North  Pole  in  1892,  was  practically  buried  in  the  ice  and  snow 
of  the  Arctic  regions,  lost  to  the  civilized  world,  and  in  grave 
danger  of  utter  destruction,  Angelo  Heilprin,  by  hard  and  in- 
sistent effort,  battling  at  every  turn  with  the  furious  elements 
of  that  inhospitable  region,  successfully  led  a  relief  expedition 
which  brought  succor  to  a  group  of  weakened  explorers  who 
could  not  have  endured  much  longer  the  privations  to  which 
they  were  exposed.  Skill,  knowledge,  experience,  all  available 
means  at  the  disposal  of  man,  were  by  themselves  alone  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  indomitable  will,  strength  of  pur- 
pose, courageous  effort,  and  unflagging  zeal  of  this  leader  of  men, 
who,  having  found  work  to  do,  did  it  with  all  his  might. 

Again,  what  a  forceful  illustration  of  self-forgetfulness,  of 
utter  disregard  of  personal  danger,  of  determined  effort  to  reach 
the  solution  of  one  of  Nature's  mysteries,  is  to  be  found  in  Heil- 
prin's  work  at  Martinique  and  his  later  study  of  Mont  Pelee. 
In  that  terrible  destruction  of  Martinique,  with  its  loss  of 
30,000  lives  and  the  wonderful  throwing  up  of  the  power  of 


380  ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

Pelee,  was  to  be  found  a  striking  illustration  of  volcanic  power, 
perhaps  not  equalled  since  the  destruction  of  Pompeii.  Is  it  to 
be  wondered  at  that  the  spirit  of  investigation  was  aroused  to 
the  utmost  in  this  man's  mind  ?  Here  was  an  opportunity  rarely 
afforded  to  mankind.  I  doubt  if  the  thought  of  danger,  of  pos- 
sible death,  of  possible  risk  even,  ever  entered  his  mind.  Here 
was  something  to  be  done;  here  a  chance  to  broaden  man's 
knowledge  of  volcanic  phenomena ;  and  he  improved  the  oppor- 
tunity to  the  utmost.  I  have  often  read  the  vivid  description 
of  his  numerous  ascents  of  Mont  Pelee,  even  while  the  volcano 
was  thundering  forth  its  deluge  of  boulders  and  death-dealing 
vapors,  but  never  without  a  thrill,  and  a  feeling  of  admiration 
for  the  splendid  courage  and  apparently  unconscious  spirit  that 
permeated  the  man." 

Henry  G.  Bryant  remarked : 

"  As  an  associate  of  Professor  Heilprin  on  the  Peary  Relief 
Expedition  of  1892,  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I  draw  on  some  per- 
sonal recollections  to  illustrate  his  methods  while  in  the  field. 
Whether  contemplating  a  journey  to  the  Far  North  or  to  the 
jungles  of  South  America,  he  invariably  familiarized  himself 
with  the  existing  literature  relating  to  the  region  to  be  visited. 
He  selected  his  companions  with  judgment  and  imbued  them 
with  his  own  enthusiasm, 

As  a  result  of  fair  treatment  and  unvarying  courtesy  toward 
the  members  of  the  Arctic  Expedition  referred  to,  in  spite  of 
the  many  vicissitudes  of  the  voyage,  every  member  of  the  party 
returned  home  a  warm  friend  of  his  leader.  One  unique  feature 
of  that  journey  was  the  series  of  informal  talks  which  he  gave 
during  the  voyage  relating  to  the  fauna  and  flora,  and  especially 
to  the  glacial  phenomena,  of  the  regions  we  were  visiting.  One 
other  incident  I  recall  which  made  a  marked  impression  at  the 
time :  it  was  late  in  August,  and  with  the  members  of  the  Peary 
party  we  had  on  board  we  had  made  our  way  in  the  steamship 
Kite,  to  the  southwest  coast  of  Greenland  —  homeward  bound. 
The  weather  conditions  being  favorable,  it  was  decided  to  put 
in  at  Godthaab,  a  Danish  colony,  which  is  the  capital  of  the 
southern  district  of  Greenland.  Needless  to  say,  we  were 


HIS  DEATH  AND  TRIBUTES  TO  HIS  MEMORY   381 

heartily  welcomed  by  the  Danish  officials  and  missionaries  resid- 
ing there.  On  the  last  day  of  our  visit,  as  the  long  twilight  of 
the  Arctic  summer  faded  into  night  —  most  of  our  company 
were  assembled  at  the  house  of  the  assistant  governor  listening 
to  some  singing  by  the  wife  of  that  official.  Our  host  presently 
invited  Professor  Heilprin  to  play  on  the  new  piano  which  had 
just  arrived  from  Europe.  Without  a  moment  of  hesitation  he 
sat  down  and  entertained  us  for  an  hour  with  selections  from  the 
works  of  Rubinstein  and  other  composers,  all  executed  with  the 
power  and  expression  of  an  artist.  Never  before  or  since,  I 
venture  to  say,  had  those  bleak  shores  heard  such  harmonies." 

A  tribute  from  the  American  Geographical  Society  and  the 
Peary  Arctic  Club  of  New  York  was  brought  by  Herbert  L. 
Bridgman.  He  said: 

"  The  Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  of  which 
Professor  Heilprin  was  a  corresponding  member  and  a  valued 
lecturer,  at  its  first  meeting  after  his  death,  adopted  a  Minute, 
paying  to  him  honor  as  an  ideal  student  and  teacher,  possess- 
ing in  a  rare  degree  the  power  to  discover  and  disclose  the 
secrets  of  nature  and  the  truths  of  science.  Also  the  follow- 
ing appreciation  from  Commander  Peary,  whose  name  is  a 
synonym  for  all  that  is  greatest  and  best  in  Arctic  exploration, 
was  read  at  Professor  Heilprin's  funeral: 

'  I  cannot  begin  to  express  my  feeling  of  personal  loss  in  his 
death.  The  loss  to  the  scientific  world,  to  geographical  circles 
everywhere,  to  the  Geographical  Society  of  Philadelphia  and  the 
Alpine  Club  of  America,  both  of  which  were  the  inception  and 
children  of  his  brain,  can  never  be  made  good.  But  the  loss  to 
those  who  have  known  him  intimately  for  years  is  beyond 
words. 

My  own  obligations  to  and  regard  for  him  are  particularly 
great.  To  him,  more  than  to  anyone  else,  is  due  the  activity  of 
this  country  in  Arctic  and  Antarctic  work  during  the  past  fifteen 
years;  for  it  was  his  interest  and  belief  in  my  first  project  for 
Arctic  work,  presented  to  the  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences  in  1891,  that  led  to  the  adoption  of  that  plan  by  that 
organization,  and  the  consequent  awakening  of  interests  in  Polar 
matters  in  the  years  since  then. 


382  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

I  always  found  him  ready,  loyal  and  superlatively  able. 
When  I  named  one  of  the  greatest  of  Greenland  glaciers  and 
later  one  of  the  most  northerly  lands  after  him,  it  was  no  per- 
functory action,  but  a  tribute  of  the  deepest  regard  and 
friendship.' 

The  American  Geographical  Society  of  New  York,  oldest  or- 
ganization of  its  kind  in  the  country,  also  bids  me  express  to 
the  Philadelphia  Society  its  own  sense  of  loss  of  a  co-worker, 
leader  and  an  instructor  whose  words  were  always  inspiring  and 
whose  example,  both  at  home  and  in  the  field,  was  one  of  intel- 
ligent zeal  and  continuous  loyalty.  .  .  . 

I  can  speak  of  Professor  Heilprin  as  a  friend,  of  a  friend, 
though  there  was  more  than  that  mere  superficial  liking  which 
passes  sometimes  for  friendship.  He  made  one  conscious  of 
keen  and  quick  sympathy;  of  the  sincere  desire  to  encourage 
and  develop  in  others  no  less  than  himself,  something  better  and 
higher,  thus  making  the  pursuit  of  truth,  the  study  of  Nature, 
the  investigation  of  its  laws,  but  the  means  to  an  end.  All  of 
you  who  came  into  close  personal  contact  with  Professor  Heil- 
prin must  realize  what  I  mean  much  better  than  words  can 
express,  and  in  that  fine  individual  assertion  lay,  I  think,  the 
chief  source  of  his  remarkable  achievements.  To  him  Nature 
was  a  friend,  a  companion  to  become  acquainted  with,  to  know 
by  faithful  observations,  by  honest,  open-minded,  wide-visioned 
study  and  comparison.  To  him,  Nature  was  no  sphinx  nor 
tyrant,  but  rather  a  loving  and  leading  power,  to  be  cherished 
and  interpreted  and  in  whose  laws  were  to  be  read  those  of  the 
life  and  development  of  man.  With  this  disposition,  this  es- 
sential appreciation,  the  inclusion  of  others  became  easy  and 
genuine,  and  in  this  way  the  friendship  based  upon  kindred 
tastes  and  interests  grew  to  be  a  comfort,  a  strength  and  an 
inspiration.  It  does  not  fall  to  any  one  of  us,  perhaps,  to  take 
up  the  work  which  death  has  interrupted.  That  will,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  adjust  itself.  It  is,  however,  an  obligation,  a 
privilege,  to  treasure  the  memory  and  the  ideals  of  this  man  and 
friend,  whose  life  spoke  so  clearly,  so  nobly,  which  rang  always 
true,  whose  echoes  we  can  never  fail  to  hear." 

Professor  William  Libbey,  of  Princeton  University,  represent- 
ing the  American  Philosophical  Society,  said: 


HIS  DEATH  AND  TRIBUTES  TO  HIS  MEMORY   383 

"  I  am  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of  representing  probably 
the  oldest  societies  of  America  on  this  occasion.  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  the  notice  which  I  received  being  late,  will  necessitate 
my  speaking  not  so  much  upon  Professor  Heilprin's  work  as 
upon  his  character. 

There  are  many  vulgar  estimates  of  greatness.  The  mere 
sense  of  isolation  by  elevation  above  the  plane  of  common  hu- 
manity is  often  gratifying  to  small  minds,  but  it  is  far  from 
satisfying,  and  its  emptiness  is  often  as  apparent  as  the  com- 
ments passed  upon  it.  One  is  reminded  of  the  question  asked 
of  a  person  who  had  taken  a  trip  in  a  balloon,  as  to  ( whether 
he  did  not  suffer  from  the  heat  when  he  got  so  much  nearer  the 
sun'  —  forgetting  that  the  further  we  get  from  touch  with 
humanity,  the  colder  it  becomes. 

I  am  afraid  that  many  of  us  fill  our  lives  with  regret,  at 
being  confined  to  narrow  fields  of  usefulness.  We  forget  that 
the  man  with  one  talent  is  never  held  responsible  for  five. 
We  have  not  learned  the  lesson  of  high  endeavor  and  faith- 
ful plodding  work.  We  have  not  lived  up  to  that  famous 
epitaph  placed  upon  a  Roman  hero's  tomb,  which  was  consid- 
ered his  highest  praise,  '  Fortiter,  f eliciter,  fideliter,'  '  bravely, 
cheerfully,  faithfully,'  and  know  that  these  words  covered 
a  life  of  devotion,  well  rounded  out  and  complete  in  all  its 
details. 

A  commodore  in  our  navy,  when  told  by  some  one  that  the 
'  Congress,'  a  vessel  commanded  by  his  son,  had  struck  her  flag, 
simply  said,  '  Then  Joe  is  dead.'  Could  any  higher  praise  be 
given  him? 

How  true  this  praise  is  of  the  lives  of  most  teachers.  To  use 
Professor  Heilprin's  own  words  in  an  article  in  the  Forum  in 
1900,  '  a  teacher  is  said  to  be  impractical,  to  be  a  dealer  in 
facts  which  bring  remuneration  to  neither  body  nor  soul.' 
However  true  this  may  be,  the  unheralded  successes  of  a 
teacher's  life  are  none  the  less  real  to  himself,  though  we  do 
not  often  stop  to  realize  how  much  sacrifice  they  involve,  and 
how  much  they  mean  to  us.  To  the  teacher  in  science  this  is 
especially  true,  because  if  he  is  true  to  his  standards  he  gets 
closer  to  his  students  than  other  masters,  as  he  has  to  study 
their  capacities  quite  as  much  as  his  subjects. 


384:  ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

I  know  of  no  field  of  scientific  investigation  so  well  fitted 
for  exact  training  as  that  of  geography,  or  one  which  involves 
so  much  preliminary  work,  not  only  in  the  study,  but  in  the 
close  investigation  of  nature. 

It  is  in  the  intimate  combination  of  these  two  spheres  of 
activity  that  we  find  the  secret  of  Professor  Heilprin's  success. 
He  was  an  investigator  by  nature,  and  a  teacher  from  choice. 
He  believed  that  a  little  of  real  geography  was  worth  a  ton  of 
theoretical  geography.  This  was  not  to  despise  the  theoretical 
side  of  the  subject,  far  from  it,  but  to  galvanize  it  into  life  as 
only  the  enthusiastic  field  worker  can  do. 

As  with  many  other  workers  in  this  field,  the  mountains  were 
his  favorites ;  he  worked  along  high  levels  in  more  senses  than 
one.  This  actual  contact  with  nature  made  him  the  greater 
power  on  the  lecture  platform  and  in  the  class  room.  His  many 
publications  have  made  a  name  and  fame  for  themselves,  but 
his  personality  and  enthusiasm  were  the  telling  points  of  his 
character. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  once  said  that  the  greatest  men  in  this 
world  were  the  t  shadow  men,'  men  who  had  lived  and  worked 
and  gone  beyond,  but  whose  strong  personalities  cast  a  long 
shadow  across  our  horizon. 

To-night  we  stand  before  such  a  shadow,  and  it  points  the 
way  to  greater  earnestness  and  faithfulness;  to  greater  joy  in 
work,  and  perhaps,  greater  sacrifice.  No  life  has  been  in  vain 
which  produces  such  a  result." 

Mr.  Frank  B.  Greene  spoke  of  his  trip  with  Professor  Heil- 
prin  in  the  Rocky  Mountains: 

"  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  a  member  of  the  party  that  in 
the  summer  of  1895  visited  the  heart  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
under  the  leadership  of  Professor  Angelo  Heilprin.  The  com- 
pany of  ten  was  recruited  mainly  from  his  class  in  geology.  .  .  . 

The  magnificent  natural  scenery  of  this  whole  region,  of  which 
even  the  matter-of-fact  and  technical  descriptions  in  the  reports 
of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey  read  with  the  fascina- 
tion of  a  fairy  tale,  could  not  fail  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  most  unimpressionable  tourist.  Into  the  enjoyment  of  the 
picturesque  features  of  this  great  panorama  of  Nature,  daily 


HIS  DEATH  AND  TRIBUTES  TO  HIS  MEMORY   385 

unfolded  with  unexpected  and  startling  variety,  Professor  Heil- 
prin  entered  with  as  much  zest  as  any  member  of  the  party. 
When,  by  means  of  his  explanations,  there  was  added  to  super- 
ficial observation  an  appreciation  of  the  relationship  of  one  part 
of  the  picture  to  another,  and  of  the  geological  significance  of 
the  formation  and  structure,  the  dullest  of  his  hearers  felt  the 
range  of  vision  enlarged  till  each  aspect  of  the  changing  scene 
awakened  a  new  and  deeper  interest.  As  a  guide  and  instructor 
Professor  Heilprin  was  seldom  formal  in  manner  and  never 
pedantic.  The  members  of  the  party  were  treated  as  comrades, 
courteously  placed  upon  a  footing  of  equality.  When  the  pages 
of  Nature's  open  book  were  being  translated,  it  was  with  the 
assumption  that  the  power  of  interpretation  was  a  common  gift 
and  that  he  was  acting  merely  as  spokesman.  There  was  no 
talking  down  to  inferiors.  The  language  was  simple  and  gen- 
erally devoid  of  scientific  phraseology.  .  .  .  He  who  could  spend 
much  time  in  companionship  with  Professor  Heilprin  and  find 
life  dull  or  uninteresting  must  have  been  irresponsive  and  stolid. 
His  manner  was  genial,  his  conversation  brilliant,  his  fund  of 
information  extraordinary.  His  learning  was  not  confined  to 
the  realm  of  science.  Music,  art,  history  and  literature  were 
fields  in  which  he  was  no  stranger.  There  was  often  the  sparkle 
of  wit  in  his  remarks,  and  he  had  a  ready  appreciation  of 
humor,  but  when  it  seemed  out  of  place  it  was  as  distasteful 
to  him  as  a  discord  to  the  sensitive  ear  of  the  musician." 

Dr.  Theodore  Le  Boutillier  sketched  Professor  Heilprin,  the 
man.  He  said  in  part: 

"  In  1896  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  have  been  his  only  com- 
panion upon  his  trip  to  Morocco,  Algeria  and  Tunis,  where  he 
definitely  determined  that  the  Atlas  mountains  are  a  continua- 
tion of  the  Alps  and  geologically  co-existent.  This  close  asso- 
ciation for  two  months  was  a  wonderful  revelation  of  a  strong 
personality  and  a  noble  character.  Whatever  difficulties  or 
disappointments  arose,  he  maintained  a  calm  and  good  nature, 
and,  with  his  usual  resourcefulness,  was  always  ready  to  sub- 
stitute some  equally  satisfactory  plan.  It  was  astonishing  to 
find  that  his  information  and  judgment  extended  to  such  things 
as  rugs,  pottery,  even  embroideries  and  so  forth. 


386  ANGELO  HEILPKItf 

He  liad  a  comforting  way  of  displaying  to  an  average  indi- 
vidual, like  myself,  a  quite  human  weakness  for  some  of  the 
ordinary  enjoyments  of  life.  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  our 
feast  of  ice  cream  at  Marseilles.  Immediately  upon  our  arrival 
from  Africa  we  hastened  to  the  first  confectioner,  where  to 
the  astonished  enjoyment  of  the  proprietor  and  a  crowd  of  on- 
lookers we  quickly  vanquished  three  portions  each. 

Socially,  was  again  displayed  Mr.  Heilprin's  adaptability  to 
all  conditions,  and  all  types  of  people.  One  need  not  have  been 
profound  or  talented  to  claim  his  attention  and  courtesy,  or 
enjoy  his  conversation,  which  was  frequently  bright  and  spark- 
ling. His  wit  was  never  caustic,  but  often  had  a  droll  facetious- 
ness  highly  amusing,  whatever  the  mental  status  of  his  hearers. 
That  reminds  me  of  a  trip  which  some  of  the  members  here 
present  took  with  Professor  Heilprin  in  1893.  We  were  on  a 
canal  boat  for  several  days  and  the  owner  of  the  canal  boat, 
a  man  by  the  name  of  Countryman,  gave  this  statement  of  Mr. 
Heilprin,  which  I  think  shows  clearly  and  exactly  what  per- 
sons who  were  brought  into  contact  with  him  —  those  of  a  lowly 
station  in  life  —  thought  of  a  man  of  his  wonderful  character. 
He  said :  '  That  chap  you  call  the  professor  is  a  good  man  — 
I  didn't  know  such  men  lived  as  he  is.'  I  think  that  is  one 
of  the  most  touching  tributes  I  know  of.  This  man,  who  had 
no  opportunity,  and  who  spent  his  life  as  a  captain  of  a  canal 
boat,  realized  the  strength  and  force  of  character  of  the  man 
he  was  with.  It  was  something  that  shows  us  the  personality 
and  how  he  impressed  everyone  who  came  into  close  touch  with 
him. 

We  who  know  him  intimately  never  heard  him  make  an  un- 
kind remark  or  in  any  way  belittle  the  efforts  of  anyone  who 
was  conscientiously  striving  to  obtain  or  dispense  knowledge. 
On  the  other  hand  he  was  fearless  in  contradicting  or  combating 
any  statement  which  he  believed  to  be  inexact  or  misleading. 

Mr.  Heilprin's  talent  for  music,  as  well  as  that  for  drawing 
and  painting,  was  an  almost  spontaneous  expression,  for  except 
a  few  lessons  in  childhood  he  had  little  instruction  in  either. 

Only  those  who  cherished  his  personal  friendship,  before 
whom  he  sat  in  quiet  self-forgetful  abandon,  playing  on  the 
piano  some  soul-stirring  Hungarian  national  air,  some  fan- 


HIS  DEATH  AND  TEIBUTES  TO  HIS  MEMOEY   387, 

tastic  Hungarian  dance,  or  perhaps  some  weirdly  melancholy 
strains  of  Hungarian  folk-songs;  only  those  understood  how 
this  wonderful  soul  was  in  touch  with  the  enchanting  world  of 
melody. 

Whatever  it  was :  song,  dance,  rhapsody,  or  patriotic  hymn, 
it  was  vitally  Hungarian,  and  showed  how  into  his  innermost 
fiber  was  woven  the  idea  of  Hungarian  liberty." 

Commander  Peary  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the  meeting: 

"  Philadelphia  Geographical  Society, 

Witherspoon  Hall,  Philadelphia: 

Deeply  regret  to  find  at  last  moment  Mrs.  Peary  and  I  unable 
to  be  present  to-night  as  we  had  intended.  News  of  the  death 
of  Professor  Heilprin  came  to  us  with  the  shock  and  feeling  of 
loss  of  a  personal  bereavement,  from  which  we  have  not  yet 
recovered.  A  man  among  thousands,  Professor  Heilprin's  place 
can  never  be  filled.  Your  Society  and  the  Alpine  Club  of 
America,  both  children  of  his  great  brain,  both  distinctive  in  the 
scientific  field  of  this  country,  will  always  endure  as  monuments 
of  his  great  ability  and  far-sightedness.  You  and  all  your 
secretaries  know  that  to  him  was  due  primarily  the  renewal 
of  interest  in  Arctic  work  in  this  country  which  began  sixteen 
years  ago,  and  which  has  not  yet  reached  its  culmination. 
Strong,  resourceful,  deeply  loyal,  and  superlatively  able,  he  was 
the  personification  of  Mark  Antony's  words,  '  My  friend,  faith- 
ful and  true  to  me.'  With  us  as  with  all  who  had  the  honor 
and  privilege  of  his  acquaintance  and  friendship,  his  memory 
will  always  be  green. 

PEABY." 


XIV 
PERSONAL   TRAITS 

The  loss  to  the  family  was  indeed  a  grievous  one.  To  them 
he  had  ever  remained  as  he  was  in  his  childhood,  gentle,  sunny 
and  care-free,  giving  and  receiving  unbounded  affection.  The 
days  of  his  home-coming,  whether  on  a  visit  from  Philadelphia 
or  on  his  return  from  distant  countries,  restored  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  the  full  joys  of  a  household  united  in  har- 
monious pursuits  and  common  pleasures.  He  was  the  life  of 
every  circle  in  which  he  found  himself  —  whether  at  home  with 
his  relatives,  in  a  camp  in  the  wilderness,  on  board  of  a  Euro- 
pean steamer,  in  the  most  formal  society  or  in  a  primitive  country 
boarding-house.  He  loved  to  unbend  and  take  his  place  with 
young  and  merry  folk,  but  if  the  occasion  called  for  it,  and  he 
felt  sure  of  a  sympathetic  listener,  he  was  always  ready  to  give 
of  the  vast  stores  of  his  experience  and  learning,  and  could  hold 
spell-bound  the  improvised  audiences  that  would  gather  around 
him.  He  was  thoroughly  democratic,  without  effort  or  conscious- 
ness. Though  fond  of  the  society  of  congenial  women,  it  was 
his  destiny  to  remain  single.  Official  distinctions,  which  came 
home  to  him  from  this  country  and  from  abroad,  he  prized 
chiefly  for  the  pleasure  they  gave  to  his  relatives.  When  he  was 
elected  a  member  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society  of  London 
he  wrote  to  his  mother : 

"  I  know  you  will  be  pleased  to  learn  from  the  enclosed  that  the 
Royal  Geographical  Society  of  London  has  just  elected  me  to 
fellowship  in  their  body.  "When  you  used  to  read  to  me  so 
pleasantly  books  on  travel  and  geology  —  and  I  remember 
specially  Wallace's  '  Malay  Archipelago '  —  it  was  one  of  my 
ambitions  to  become  elected  to  this  body.  With  the  years  that 


ANOELO    AND   Louis   HEILPRIX 
AS  YOUNG  BOYS 

From  a  Photograph  taken  in  the  early  'Sixties 


PEKSONAL   TKAITS  389 

have  passed  I  no  longer  look  with  exactly  the  same  feelings 
toward  recognitions  or  associations  of  this  kind  —  the  world  of 
knowledge  is  not  quite  so  solid  as  it  at  one  time  appeared  —  but 
yet  I  cannot  help  being  pleased  that  an  old  wish  has  so  unex- 
pectedly been  gratified;  but  it  gives  me  most  pleasure  to  have 
this  honor,  if  honor  it  is,  associated  with  your  motherly 
assistance. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

ANGELO." 

More  than  such  outward  acknowledgments  of  his  standing 
in  the  scientific  world  —  he  was  President  of  the  American 
Geological  Society  from  1891  to  1898,  became  later  President  of 
the  Association  of  American  Geographers,  etc.  —  he  perhaps 
prized  success  in  accomplishing  what  he  set  out  to  do  in  fields 
entirely  unconnected  with  his  scientific  pursuits.  He  was  grati- 
fied to  obtain  patents  for  several  mechanical  devices  which  occu- 
pied his  leisure  hours.  Thus,  in  January,  1882,  he  was  granted  a 
patent  for  his  invention  of  a  contrivance  for  mechanically  turning 
leaves  of  music  at  the  piano,  and  in  April,  1896,  his  ventilating 
railroad-car  window  was  granted  a  patent.  For  this  invention 
he  was  awarded  the  Edward  Longstreth  medal  of  the  Franklin 
Institute  in  1897.  Pecuniarily  he  never  profited  in  the  least 
by  his  inventions.  Attainment  of  a  full  measure  of  success  in 
his  artistic  endeavors  —  which  perhaps  was  one  of  his  ambi- 
tions —  was  denied  him,  owing,  at  least  in  part,  to  lack  of 
systematic  instruction  in  both  music  and  painting,  but  he  re- 
ceived decided  popular  recognition  for  what  he  did  as  a  painter. 
His  eight  paintings  of  the  eruption  of  Mont  Pelee  —  now  loaned 
to  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  and  adorning  its 
walls  —  arrested  the  attention  of  artists  and  critics  on  their 
exhibition  in  Philadelphia  and  at  the  Century  Club  of  New 
York.  A  writer  in  the  Philadelphia  Ledger  said  of  the  pictures : 

"  An  exhibition  of  exceptional  interest,  shadowed  only  by  the 
melancholy  regret  that  the  artist  is  no  longer  alive  to  continue 
his  distinguished  scientific  career  among  us,  is  in  progress  at  the 
Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts,  where  eight  paintings  done  in  Mar- 
tinique are  lent  by  the  family  of  the  late  Angelo  Heilprin,  the 


390  ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

collection  having  been  secured  through  the  courtesy   of  the 
Geographical  Society. 

The  eminent  naturalist  was  so  identified  with  research  work 
along  geological  and  zoological  lines  that  it  is  less  generally 
known  that  he  was  a  painter  of  no  small  degree  of  skill,  who 
contributed  canvases  to  prominent  picture  displays.  The  in- 
terest of  his  Mont  Pelee  sketches  is  not  alone  in  the  tragic  up- 
heaval of  elementary  force  which  they  commemorate ;  a  purely 
artistic  value  also  attaches  to  the  paintings.  Some  are  small 
sketches  made  when  Doctor  Heilprin  was  in  Martinique,  a  story 
attaching  to  one  of  these  relating  that  as  he  painted  he  was 
obliged  to  shield  the  canvas  with  his  body  from  the  rain  of 
ashes.  Others,  larger  in  form  and  more  carefully  worked  out 
than  would  be  possible  under  conditions  of  such  primeval  chaos, 
have  been  elaborated  from  Martinique  color  studies  helped  out 
by  a  memory  not  only  trained,  but  impressed  past  ability  to 
forget  by  the  scenes  of  desolation  witnessed. 

The  place  of  honor  is  given  to  a  presentation  of  the  '  Tower 
of  Mont  Pelee,'  which  shows  the  great  shaft  as  it  appears  when 
the  sunlight  turns  its  deathly  ashen  tint  to  rose  color,  the  beau- 
tiful natural  miracle  which  may  be  watched  daily  in  Switzer- 
land. Here  is  the  artist's  idealization  of  the  normal,  the  stern 
shaft  of  rock  rising  into  the  pitiless  blue  of  a  tropic  sky  above 
cloud  masses  of  vari-colored  vapors.  Beside  this  is  a  view  of 
the  volcano  in  eruption  as  seen  from  the  graveyard  Marigot. 
Here  Doctor  Heilprin's  point  of  view  became  dramatic  and 
directly  decorative.  Dark  cloud  masses  in  sombre  richness  veil 
the  mountain,  relieved  against  which  a  great  crucifix  rises  in 
gaunt  majesty.  .  .  . 

A  white  light,  which  does  not  explain  itself  altogether,  strikes 
coldly  into  the  middle  distance,  while  the  diminishing  line  of 
a  blasted  tree  and  rows  of  memorial  crosses  (skilfully  managed 
so  as  not  to  create  a  monotonous  line)  still  further  compel  the 
imagination  of  the  spectator  to  appreciation  for  the  painter's 
poetic  conception.  *  Into  the  Crater,'  an  unfinished  work,  is  a 
mass  of  unfathomable  shadow  such  as  envelopes  one  who  de- 
scends far  below  the  earth's  surface,  beyond  power  of  the  blessed 
light  to  follow.  A  sinister  mass  of  living  red  in  the  lower  left- 
hand  corner  of  the  canvas  glows  like  the  eye  of  some  cosmic 


PERSONAL   TRAITS  391 

Fafner  ready  to  devour  again  and  yet  again.  '  An  Eruption  of 
Mont  Pelee '  is  a  mere  suggestion  of  the  lines  of  the  mountain 
seen  against  a  pale  sky,  but  the  artist's  interpretative  poetry  is 
again  evidenced  by  the  details  in  the  '  Afterglow  of  the  Ash- 
cloud/  where  the  jagged  line  of  a  nearer  mountain  and  skeleton 
trees  are  utilized  with  a  sense  of  decoration  truly  Japanese. 
'  The  Majesty  of  Mont  Pelee-Inferno  '  is  the  title  of  an  elaborate 
rendering  of  a  veritable  sea  of  vapor,  whose  billows  and  waves 
rise  higher  and  higher  in  a  hundred  prismatic  colors,  all  modu- 
lating again  from  the  same  sinister  glow  in  the  soul  of  its 
currents." 


Exact  reproduction  of  a  pencil  drawing  of  a  Map  of  Greenland  made  by 
Angela  Heilprin  at  the  age  of  fix  year* 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  specimen  of  Angelo  Heilprin's 
skill  is  a  little  map  of  Greenland  made  by  him  at  the  age  of 
six.  It  was  sent  by  his  father  in  a  letter  still  in  the  possession 
of  the  family,  which  bears  the  date  of  April  29,  1859  (when  the 
boy  was  scarcely  one  month  past  his  sixth  birthday),  to  the 
grandfather,  who  was  then  in  Paris.  When  the  map  was  dis- 
covered, many  years  afterwards,  and  shown  to  Angelo  Heilprin 
as  the  work  of  a  child  of  six,  he  maintained  stoutly  that  this 
could  not  possibly  have  been  the  case,  but  showed  great  interest 


392  ANGELO  HEILPRIF 

in  it.  It  was  most  amusing  to  watch  his  confusion  when  he 
was  confronted  with  the  indubitable  evidence  that  the  map  was 
his  own  youthful  production,  and  that  at  such  an  early  age  he 
had  busied  himself  with  the  distant  country  part  of  which  was 
to  bear  his  name. 


XV 
ANGELO   HEILPRIN   AS   LECTURER 

Many  and  varied  were  the  activities  which  Angelo  Heilprin 
crowded  into  his  comparatively  short  life.  After  his  first  re- 
turn from  Martinique  he  was  in  great  demand  as  a  popular 
lecturer.  He  spoke  at  the  Cooper  Institute  in  this  city,  at  the 
Brooklyn  Institute,  and  in  various  cities  of  New  England  and 
the  South.  His  method  in  addressing  miscellaneous  audiences 
can  best  be  illustrated  by  reproducing  his  lecture  on  The  Geolog- 
ical Evidences  of  Evolution,  which  is  doubtless  one  of  the  best 
popular  expositions  of  the  subject.  The  little  book  is  now  out 
of  print. 


"  Just  fifty  years  ago  this  year  were  planted  the  germs  of  a 
train  of  scientific  speculation  whose  development  was  destined 
to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  science  —  to  work  a  most 
profound  revolution  in  the  tendencies  of  modern  thought.  It 
was  then  that  Charles  Darwin  first  conceived  the  idea  of  investi- 
gating that  mystery  of  mysteries,  the  origin  of  species,  and  it 
was  then  that  he  laid  the  foundation  of  that  remarkable  work 
which  some  twenty  years  later  was  destined  to  convulse  the 
scientific  world.  Nearly  thirty  years  have  now  elapsed  since  the 
'  Origin  of  Species '  first  saw  the  light  of  day,  and  although! 
in  its  infancy  it  met  with  but  few  adherents  to  its  general  propo- 
sition that  all  existing  organic  forms  are  but  modifications  of, 
or  derivatives  from,  allied  or  previously  existing  forms,  it  num- 
bers at  the  present  day  an  equally  small,  or  still  smaller,  number 
of  opponents.  It  may  safely  be  said  that  no  broad  scientific 
generalization,  unless  possibly  it  be  that  of  the  Correlation  of 
Forces,  ever  met  with  such  ready  acceptance  as  did  the  doctrine 


394  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

of  evolution  or  transformism.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to-night  to 
discuss  the  status  of  evolution,  which  has  long  since  passed 
from  the  realm  of  pure  and  simple  theory,  but  to  present  to  you 
such  of  the  more  salient  facts  bearing  upon  its  proof,  drawn 
from  my  own  department  of  geology  and  palaeontology,  as  will 
permit  you  to  understand  why  the  greater  number  of  naturalists 
consider  the  doctrine  as  firmly  established  to-day  as  is  the 
Copernican  theory  of  planetary  revolution,  the  theory  of  gravi- 
tation, or  the  undulatory  theory  of  light. 

THE  MEANING  OF  EVOLUTION 

Before  entering  into  an  analysis  of  this  evidence,  it  will  be 
well  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  term  '  evolution '  as 
applied  to  organic  beings.  There  is  much  misconception  on  this 
point,  arising  primarily  from  an  erroneous  interpretation  of  the 
relations  which  the  different  animal  and  vegetable  organisms 
hold  to  one  another.  Evolution,  in  its  more  common  accepta- 
tion —  in  the  sense  I  propose  treating  of  it  to-night  —  signifies 
merely  the  evolving  or  production  of  new  organic  forms  from 
forms  more  or  less  unlike  themselves;  it  recognizes  as  the  re- 
sult of  its  action  that  all  the  varied  animal  and  vegetable  forms 
now  inhabiting  or  covering  the  earth's  surface  are  the  descend- 
ants, through  a  long  series  of  modifications  or  transformations, 
of  a  limited  number  of  ancient  types  whose  ancestry  lies  buried 
deep  in  the  history  of  the  world.  As  a  corollary  of  this,  which 
might  be  termed  material  evolution,  we  have  an  accompanying 
evolution  of  the  mind,  habit,  and  consciousness,  but  these  im- 
portant factors  in  sociology  do  not  concern  us  this  evening. 

One  of  the  most  popular  fallacies  connected  with  evolution 
is  the  supposition  that  if  all  organic  forms  are  mere  derivatives 
of  one  another,  no  matter  how  unlike  they  may  be,  it  follows 
that  they  occupy  a  serial  position  with  reference  to  each  other; 
in  other  words,  it  is  conceived  that  if  all  the  connecting  forms 
were  discovered,  they  would  build  up  a  continuous  organic 
chain.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth;  evolution 
recognizes  modification  in  the  most  divergent  directions,  and 
the  tree  of  life  that  it  restores  is  not  a  straight  stem  growing 
from  a  continuous  apical  bud,  but  a  stem,  or  possibly  even  a 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    395 

limited  number  of  stems,  branching  in  varying  directions.  The 
bird,  which,  in  our  conception  of  structural  organization,  stands 
intermediate  in  rank  between  the  reptile  and  mammal,  appears 
to  be  a  descendant  of  the  former,  the  reptile,  but  the  mammal, 
which  immediately  follows  the  bird,  has  little  or  no  connection 
with  it.  One  line  or  the  other  is  a  side  line,  and  there  can  be 
no  connection  between  the  two  except  at  their  points  of 
divergence. 

Granting  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  proof  that  would  be  required  of  the  geologist  to 
establish  its  validity?  He  would  be  required  to  show,  in  the 
first  place,  that  there  has  been  a  steady  advance  in  the  type  of 
structural  organization  from  first  to  last  —  not  a  necessary  elimi- 
nation of  forms  of  low  degree,  but  an  overbalancing  of  these  by 
forms  of  a  more  complicated  or  higher  grade  of  structure. 
Evolution  does  not  hold,  as  some  opponents  of  the  theory 
would  lead  us  to  suppose,  that  the  progressive  modification 
of  individual  organic  forms  need  be,  or  indeed  has  been,  one 
of  continuous  advance;  it  recognizes  merely  a  general  ad- 
vance for  the  entire  organic  frame,  while  it  admits  of  indi- 
vidual retardation  or  degeneration.  Its  progress  or  proces- 
sion is  the  equivalent  of  the  progress  seen  in  the  development 
of  civilization;  the  united  world  advances,  whereas  indi- 
vidual tribes  or  nations  remain  at  a  standstill,  or  even  de- 
generate and  decay.  Such  is  precisely  the  history  of  the 
organic  development  of  our  planet;  new  and  more  compli- 
cated organic  types  are  being  continually  evolved,  but  side 
by  side  with  these  forms  we  still  meet  with  those  of  a  lower 
grade  of  organization,  while  still  others,  belonging  to  the 
earlier  periods  of  the  earth's  history,  have  completely  dropped 
out. 

As  a  second  proof  of  his  position  the  geologist  would  be 
compelled  to  show  the  lines  along  which  certain  organic  forms 
have  developed ;  to  speak  more  explicitly,  he  would  be  required 
to  indicate  a  number  of  transitional  types  intermediate  in  their 
relations  between  forms  otherwise  apparently  far  removed  from 
one  another.  These  are  the  so-called  'missing  links.'  Fur- 
thermore, these  missing  links  must  appear  at  definite  geolog- 
ical periods,  and  not  promiscuously  at  all  times  and  places. 


396  AXGELO   HEILPRItf 

This  is  practically  the  sum  total  of  the  proof  that  would  be 
required  of  the  geologist,  and  I  believe  that  I  shall  be  able 
during  the  course  of  the  evening  to  show  to  your  entire  satis- 
faction that  he  can  furnish  this  proof,  and  furnish  it  in  a 
most  convincing  manner. 

DIFFERENT  GEOLOGICAL  PEEIODS 

I  have  placed  before  you  a  chart  representing  the  different 
geological  periods,  beginning  with  the  oldest  at  the  bottom  and 
ending  with  the  newest  on  top.  I  have  so  arranged  it  that 
each  vertical  inch  of  its  surface  covers  2,000  feet  thickness 
of  deposit  belonging  to  each  of  the  several  periods  of  time, 
the  maxima  of  thickness  occurring  at  any  one  part  of  the 
earth's  surface  having  been  selected.  You  can  thus  determine 
for  yourselves  the  relative  values,  as  measured  by  the  thick- 
ness of  the  several  deposits,  of  the  different  periods  of  time, 
an  important  consideration  in  dealing  with  the  life-histories 
of  animal  groups.  Now,  when  we  seek  to  investigate  the  life- 
histories  of  the  different  periods  indicated  on  this  chart,  we 
are  immediately  struck  by  the  very  remarkable  progression  of 
the  animal  forms  distinctive  of  those  periods.  Instead  of 
meeting  with  a  promiscuous  association  of  animals  of  lowest 
and  highest  organization,  we  find  a  general  advance  in  struc- 
tural type  from  beginning  to  end.  It  is  true,  we  cannot  in 
all  cases  indicate  that  a  type  of  higher  or  more  complicated 
organization  invariably  followed  a  lower  type  belonging  to  the 
same  group,  but  as  a  general  rule  we  note  that  there  has  been 
a  steady  advance  in  type  structure.  "What  is  the  nature  of 
this  advance,  or  the  essence  of  the  first  required  proof? 

Looking  at  the  animal  kingdom  broadly,  and  without  at- 
tempting to  destroy  the  perspective  by  inquiring  into  unneces- 
sary details,  we  find  that  of  the  two  great  divisions  into  which 
that  kingdom  is  divided,  the  backboned  or  vertebrate  animals, 
like  the  fish,  reptile,  amphibian,  and  quadruped,  and  those 
without  backbone,  the  Invertebrata,  like  the  coral,  starfish, 
crab,  etc.,  only  the  latter  is  represented  in  the  earliest  period, 
the  Cambrian,  in  which  indisputable  animal  remains  have  been 
found.  !N\>t  a  vestige  of  any  of  the  higher  forms  has  here 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    397 

been  met  with.  But  let  me  warn  you  against  this  non-appear- 
ance. It  is  by  no  means  impossible,  or  indeed  unlikely,  that 
backboned  animals  already  lived  during  this  period  of  time, 
and  that  their  remains  will  still  some  day  be  discovered.  The 
fact,  however,  that  the  Cambrian  deposits  have  been  so  exten- 
sively studied,  and  that  no  such  remains  have  yet  been  found, 
renders  it  more  than  probable  that  the  animals  of  this  class, 
if  they  existed  at  all,  existed  in  very  small  numbers ;  and  there 
can  scarcely  be  a  shadow  of  doubt  that  their  real  development 
followed  that  of  the  animals  without  backbone,  whose  remains 
are  so  numerously  scattered  through  the  rocks.  And  let  me 
warn  you  further  that  the  future  finding  of  a  few  vertebrate 
remains  in  the  Cambrian  deposits  will  be  no  evidence  against 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  —  not  until  these  remains  will  be 
found  very  much  more  numerously  than  there  is  a  prospect 
of  ever  finding  them. 

In  the  period  succeeding  the  Cambrian,  the  Silurian,  we  find 
the  first  traces  of  backboned  animals,  —  and  what  are  they  ? 
The  lowest  members  of  the  series,  those  which  exhibit  the  least 
development  of  the  sense  organs  —  the  fishes.  These  animals 
are  numerically  insignificant  during  this  era,  and  appear  only 
towards  its  close ;  in  the  period  following,  the  Devonian,  they 
become  very  abundant,  so  much  so  that  this  period  has  been 
aptly  designated  the  '  Age  of  Fishes/  But  neither  here,  nor 
in  the  period  preceding,  the  Silurian,  has  there  ever  been 
found  a  vestige  of  an  animal  higher  in  the  scale  of  organiza- 
tion than  a  fish.  In  the  rocks  of  the  Carboniferous  period  do 
the  first  of  the  more  highly  organized  animals  appear,  but 
only  in  forms,  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  determine  from  our 
knowledge  of  recent  animal  life,  whose  early  existence  is  passed 
in  an  ichthyic  or  fish-condition.  These  are  the  amphibians, 
the  group  to  which  the  frogs  and  toads,  the  newts  and  sala- 
manders belong  —  animals,  as  we  all  know,  and  as  we  see 
exemplified  in  the  tadpole,  whose  larval  forms  breathe  the 
oxygen  of  the  water  by  means  of  exposed  gills,  and  which  in 
their  advanced  or  adult  stage,  develop  true  lungs,  and  thus 
approximate  the  reptilian  condition.  But  we  meet  as  yet  with 
no  true  reptiles.  These  appear  for  the  first  time  in  the  rocks 
of  the  succeeding  period,  the  Permian. 


398  .      AXGELO  HEILPRDT 

We  have  now  passed  through  about  two-thirds  of  the  known 
cycle  of  geological  history,  or  completely  through  what  is  known 
as  the  Paleozoic  period  of  time.  In  the  Triassic  period  we  have 
the  first  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  highest  animals,  the 
mammals,  and  in  the  period  following  this,  the  Jurassic,  of 
birds,  an  apparent  contradiction  to  the  order  of  appearance. 

FISHES  AND  AMPHIBIANS 

Let  us  here  enter  somewhat  more  closely  into  an  examina- 
tion of  the  order  of  appearance  that  has  been  outlined,  and  see 
what  it  signifies.  I  believe  we  shall  find  in  its  analysis  both 
kinds  of  evolutionary  proof  that  we  are  in  search  of.  But  in 
order  to  do  this  we  must  satisfy  ourselves  as  to  the  relation- 
ships to  one  another  of  the  different  animal  groups  whose  his- 
tories we  have  followed.  What  is  a  fish,  what  is  an  amphibian, 
and  what  is  a  reptile,  and  what  relationship  do  these  three 
groups  bear  to  one  another?  I  can  in  this  place  only  briefly 
indicate  the  essential  anatomical  features  of  these  groups.  Be- 
yond having  the  characters  belonging  to  the  Vertebrata  in 
general,  fishes  may  be  described  as  cold-blooded,  water-inhabit- 
ing animals,  breathing  by  means  of  gills,  having  but  two 
chambers  to  the  heart,  and  rejoicing  in  a  purely  systemic  cir- 
culation —  i.  e.,  the  arterialized  or  oxygenated  blood  instead 
of  being  returned  to  the  heart  before  being  finally  distributed, 
is  carried  directly  from  the  gills  to  the  different  parts  of  the 
body.  The  body,  moreover,  is  provided  with  fins,  which  fins 
are  supported  by  fin-rays.  When  we  compare  this  general 
structure  with  that  of  an  amphibian,  such  as  a  salamander  or 
frog,  we  naturally  find  much  difference.  The  frog  breathes  by 
means  of  lungs,  is  largely  an  inhabitant  of  the  land,  has  three 
chambers  to  its  heart,  has  a  true  pulmonary  circulation  —  the 
blood  being  first  returned  from  the  lungs  to  the  heart  before 
it  is  finally  distributed  —  and  the  body  is  destitute  of  fins  and 
supporting  fin-rays.  Thus,  there  would  appear  to  be  but  little 
connection  between  these  two  classes  of  animals.  When,  how- 
ever, we  inquire  into  the  early  history  of  the  frog  we  find  a 
very  close  connection,  and  one  that  proves  the  young  frog  to 
be  more  of  a  fish  than  anything  else.  The  familiar  tadpole 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    399 

or  fish-like  form  is  an  inhabitant  of  water,  and  like  the  fish 
it  breathes  water  by  means  of  gills;  it  has  but  two  partitions 
to  its  heart,  a  non-pulmonary  circulation  precisely  like  that  of 
the  fish,  and  the  body  provided  with!  fins,  which  are,  however, 
destitute  of  fin-rays. 

Leaving  out  certain  differences  in  the  osteological  structure 
of  the  cranium,  we  might  indeed  say  that  almost  the  only 
striking  character  separating  this  larval  amphibian  from  the 
fishes  is  the  absence  of  fin-rays ;  but  in  whatever  way  we  look 
upon  it,  the  creature  is  much  more  a  fish  than  anything  else, 
and  differs  less  from  certain  fishes  than  these  do  from  each 
other.  So  that  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  frog  is  a  dual 
creature  —  a  fish  in  its  young  stage  and  something  else  after- 
wards. Why  then,  it  might  be  asked,  separate  the  amphibians 
from  the  fishes  at  all  ?  The  master  mind  of  Professor  Huxley 
has  solved  this  question.  The  fishes  and  amphibians  are  but 
sub-groups  of  a  single  division,  known  to  naturalists  as  the 
Ichthyopsida.  I  have  thus  far  indicated  to  you  only  a  one- 
sided relationship.  The  amphibians  not  only  approach  the 
fishes,  but  the  fishes  approach  equally  the  amphibians.  There 
exist  a  limited  number  of  fishes,  known  as  '  mud-fishes,'  in- 
habitants of  the  waters  of  South  America,  Africa,  and  Aus- 
tralia, which  depart  from  other  fishes  so  widely  as  to  be  prop- 
erly constituted  into  a  distinct  class  of  their  own.  They  are 
provided,  in  addition  to  gills,  with  true  lungs,  by  means  of 
which  they  respire  the  oxygen  of  the  air  directly,  and  with 
which  there  stands  in  immediate  relation  a  pulmonary  circu- 
lation, operated  by  a  heart  with  three  chambers. 

REPTILES 

Having  thus  established  the  relationship  existing  between 
fishes  and  amphibians,  it  will  be  well  to  consider  in  how  far 
this  relationship  also  extends  to  the  third  group  of  cold-blooded 
animals,  the  reptiles.  Manifestly,  a  reptile  is  most  closely 
related  to  the  amphibians,  from  which  it  differs  primarily  in 
never  breathing  by  means  of  gills,  and  in  having  but  a  single 
articulation  to  the  base  of  the  skull,  instead  of  the  two  seen 
in  an  amphibian.  It  may  also  be  added  that  the  amphibian 


400  AKGELO  HEILPEIN 

has  a  naked  skin,  whereas  nearly  all  reptiles  are  provided  with 
scales  or  plates  developed  in  the  integument.  In  other  im- 
portant points  of  structure  —  such  as  the  lungs,  heart,  and 
circulation  —  a  reptile  agrees  essentially  with  an  adult  am- 
phibian, and  indeed  more  so  than  certain  reptiles  agree  with 
one  another.  The  amphibian  is,  in  truth,  an  animal  that  binds 
the  three  groups  together. 

THE  EARLIEST  AMPHIBIANS 

If  we  now  ask  ourselves  what  are  the  relative  positions  of 
these  three  groups,  the  answer  is  a  very  simple  one.  The 
amphibians  are  obviously  higher  than  the  fishes,  since  they  pass 
from,  or  through,  a  fish  stage  to  maturity;  developing  in  the 
direction  of  the  reptile,  they  naturally  point  to  the  latter  as 
the  superiors  in  the  scale  of  organization.  Eecognizing  this 
position,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  geological  history  that  they 
would  be  likely  to  tell  ?  That  the  fishes  appeared  first,  that  the 
amphibians  came  next,  and  that  these  were  followed  by  the 
reptiles,  just  as  we  have  seen  it  actually  to  have  been  the  case. 
It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  most  confirmatory  of  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  that  the  history  of  the  individual  de- 
velopment of  an  animal  frequently  repeats  the  development 
of  the  broad  group  which  it  represents.  But  geological  evi- 
dence is  not  entirely  satisfied  with  the  evidence  of  succession, 
corresponding  to  the  law  of  development,  which  I  have  just 
given  you;  it  must  sooner  or  later  show  that  in  the  period 
intervening  between  the  first  appearance  of  fishes  and  the 
earliest  development  of  amphibians  there  existed  a  type  of  fish 
more  closely  related  to  the  amphibian  than  the  ordinary  fishes 
—  in  other  words,  a  connecting  link  more  or  less  closely  related 
to  the  mud-fishes.  Such  a  form  we  find  in  Dipterus  and  its 
allies,  fishes  that  belong  to  the  Devonian  period  of  time;  and 
if  any  proof  were  further  wanted  indicating  the  antiquity  of 
the  existing  group  of  lung-fishes,  we  have  but  to  point  to  the 
occurrence  of  one  of  our  modern  genera,  Ceratodus,  already 
in  the  deposits  of  the  Permian  period.  Ceratodus,  in  fact, 
represents  the  oldest  living  vertebrate  type  known  to  naturalists. 

There  is  a  remarkable  structural  peculiarity  belonging  to 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    401 

a  very  large  number,  if,  indeed,  not  to  the  vast  majority,  of 
the  earliest  amphibians,  which  seems  to  distinguish  them  from 
all  the  modern  members  of  the  same  group  of  animals.  This 
is  a  singular  labyrinthine  infolding  of  the  substance  of  the 
teeth,  which  has  given  to  the  group  the  name  of  the  Labyrintho- 
dontia.  Now  it  is  a  surprising  circumstance  that  many  of  the 
most  ancient  fishes,  or  those  which  preceded  the  labyrintho- 
donts  in  time,  have  this  same  peculiarity  of  structure,  and  at 
the  present  day  we  have  still  a  form,  the  alligator-gar  —  one 
of  the  last  remaining  survivors  of  that  ancient  ichthyic  group, 
the  ganoids  —  which  retains  this  peculiarity  of  dental  struc- 
ture. From  what  has  already  been  said,  I  believe  it  will  be 
admitted  that  we  have  the  strongest  kind  of  evidence  to  show 
that  the  amphibians  have  been  developed  from  the  fishes,  and 
further,  that  one  of  the  most  striking  characters  of  these  most 
ancient  amphibians  is  a  character  which  had  already  been  de- 
veloped in  that  class  of  animals  whose  position  is  unmistakably 
below  them  in  the  scale  of  organization. 

THE  EARLIEST  BIEDS  AND  MAMMALS 

Passing  now  to  a  consideration  of  what  some  choose  to  call 
the  rather  anomalous  appearance  of  birds  and  mammals  in 
Mesozoic  time  —  i.  e.,  the  appearance  first  in  time  of  the  more 
highly  organized  group  —  I  am  compelled  to  ask,  in  what 
respect  is  this  appearance  anomalous  ?  What  special  relation 
do  these  two  groups  hold  to  one  another  and  to  the  animals  that 
succeed  them;  and  in  accordance  with  what  law  should  it  be 
required  that  the  order  of  appearance  be  reversed?  Mani- 
festly, only  if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  line  of  descent  of  the 
mammal  passed  through  that  of  the  bird;  otherwise  the  two 
need  bear  no  special  relation  to  one  another.  What  is  the  zoo- 
logical position  of  the  bird,  and  what  that  of  the  mammal  ?  At 
first  sight  a  bird  appears  to  be  most  sharply  defined,  and  ab- 
solutely isolated,  from  all  other  members  of  the  great  group 
of  animals.  And  our  conception  of  this  isolation  would  prob- 
ably have  remained  intact  to  the  present  day  were  it  not  for 
the  very  remarkable  discoveries  which  the  palaeontologist  has 
brought  to  light  during  the  last  half-century. 


402  ANGELO   HEILPRI^ 


THE  ABCH^OPTERYX 


Briefly  defined,  a  bird  is  a  hot-blooded  vertebrate  animal, 
provided  with  feathers  to  its  body,  with  a  complete  pulmonary 
circulation  operated  by  a  four-chambered  heart,  and  with  the 
anterior  appendages  so  modified  as  to  permit  of  navigation 
through  the  air;  the  mouth  is  destitute  of  teeth,  a  character 
which  serves  to  separate  it  from  the  greater  number  of  other 
vertebrate  animals.  This  is  our  conception  of  a  modern  bird. 
But  what  has  been  its  earlier  history?  I  have  placed  before 
you  the  figure  of  a  remarkable  creature,  known  as  the  Archseop- 
teryx,  only  two  individuals  of  which  have  thus  far  been  dis- 
covered. The  first,  now  deposited  in  the  British  Museum,  was 
found  about  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  the  second  some  ten 
years  since,  and  constitutes  to-day  one  of  the  treasures  of  the 
museum  of  Berlin.  They  were  both  found  in  the  lithographic- 
stone  quarries  of  Solenhofen,  Bavaria,  and  in  deposits  that  by 
geologists  are  referred  to  the  Jurassic  period  of  time.  This 
remarkable  creature,  which  was  of  about  the  size  of  a  raven, 
had  a  generally  bird-like  head,  but  differing  from  all  modern 
birds,  the  head  was  supplied  with  true  teeth  in  the  extremities 
of  both  the  upper  and  lower  jaws,  which  teeth  were  implanted 
in  distinct  sockets,  as  in  the  more  highly  constituted  reptiles. 
The  body  was  provided  with  well-developed  feathered  wings, 
but  again,  departing  from  true  birds,  the  rest  of  the  body, 
except  the  tail  and  parts  of  the  legs,  appears  to  have  been 
either  largely  naked,  or  but  scantily  clothed  with  feathers ;  the 
legs  and  feet  were  bird-like  in  structure,  but  in  the  hand  and 
tail  we  have  a  remarkable  combination  of  reptilian  and  avian 
characters.  The  latter,  instead  of  being  made  up  in  principal 
part  of  feathers  radiating  from  a  greatly  condensed  vertebral 
axis,  is  prolonged  into  a  long  succession  of  vertebrae,  from  two 
sides  of  which  feathers  are  given  off  in  pairs. 

Is  this  creature  a  bird  or  reptile?  I  am  free  to  admit  that 
I  am  unable  to  answer  this  question  to  my  absolute  satisfac- 
tion, although  I  would  probably  say  that  it  is  more  nearly  bird 
than  reptile.  But  if  bird  it  is  manifest  that  we  must  very 
considerably  modify  our  conception  of  what  a  bird  really  is. 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    403 

We  must  modify  our  notions  as  to  the  value  of  the  character 
afforded  by  the  absence  or  presence  of  feathers,  and  deduct 
from  our  definition  that  part  which  pertains  to  the  presence 
of  teeth.  But  that  the  matter  of  teeth  is  of  no  very  great 
moment  is  proved  by  the  existence  of  these  structures  in  a 
group  of  remarkable  and  indisputable  birds,  which  have  been 
discovered  during  the  last  few  years  in  our  own  western  ter- 
ritory. These  are  the  Odontornithes,  of  which  two  members, 
Ichthyornis  and  Hesperornis,  are  represented  on  the  diagrams 
before  you. 

RELATIONS  BETWEEN  BIKDS  AND  REPTILES 

That  these  earliest  birds  were  largely  reptilian  in  character 
can,  with  the  evidence  before  us,  scarcely  be  gainsaid;  and 
if  it  can  be  shown  with  equal  force  that  many  of  the  earlier 
reptiles  possessed  characters  belonging  to  birds,  have  we  not 
the  right  to  assume  that  the  two  classes  of  animals  are  very 
closely  related,  and  that  they  belong  to  one  and  the  same  stock  ? 
And  since  the  modern  birds  have  practically  dropped  all  their 
reptilian  characters,  have  we  not  the  right  to  assume  further 
that  birds  are  descended  from  reptiles,  of  which  they  represent 
only  a  diverging  group  ?  Is  it  not  merely  a  repetition  of  the 
tale  that  is  furnished  by  the  development  of  the  amphibian 
from  the  fish  —  so  beautifully  shown,  apart  from  geological 
history,  by  the  tadpole  before  our  eyes  —  and  the  reptile  from 
the  amphibian?  It  is  true  that  we  know  of  no  modern  bird 
which  passes  through  an  absolute  reptilian  stage,  but  does  not 
embryology  tell  us  that  one  of  the  primary  structures  separat- 
ing birds  from  reptiles,  the  feather,  is  merely  a  modified  scale, 
and  that  it  originates  as  a  true  scale  ? 

If  the  combination  of  the  modern  and  ancient  characters 
of  birds  approximates  them  so  closely  to  reptiles,  what  indeed, 
it  might  be  asked,  are  the  fundamental  characters  which  sepa- 
rate them  from  reptiles?  We  have  still  the  four-chambered 
heart,  the  presence  of  wings,  and  certain  structures  connected 
with  the  hinder  extremities.  But  the  first  distinction  is  im- 
mediately disposed  of  by  the  case  of  the  crocodiles  and  alliga- 
tors, which,  alone  among  reptiles,  have  the  four  recognized 


404  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

chambers  of  the  heart  belonging  to  the  highest  animals.  The 
matter  of  wings  is  also  disposed  of  by  those  remarkable  rep- 
tilian creatures  belonging  to  the  same  epoch  of  geological  time 
as  the  earliest  bird,  the  pterodactyls,  which  in  many  other 
characters  —  such  as  the  light  structure  and  manner  of  sup- 
port of  the  head,  the  presence  of  a  well-developed  keel  or  carina 
to  the  breast-bone,  etc.  —  also  approximate  the  birds.  Further- 
more, we  are  well  aware  that  in  the  large  group  of  struthious 
birds  —  the  ostriches,  cassowaries,  and  apteryxes  —  the  wings 
are  so  little  developed  as  to  be  all  but  functionless.  We  are 
hence  driven  to  the  remaining  characters  derived  from  the 
structure  of  the  hind-quarters  and  their  appendages. 

The  most  careless  observer  is  aware  that  a  bird  can  at  almost 
all  times  be  distinguished  from  a  reptile  by  its  mode  of  pro- 
gression —  its  elevation  on  the  hinder  extremities  alone.  But 
this  mode  of  progression  does  not  differ  more  from  that  of  a 
reptile  than  does  the  method  of  a  snake  from  that  of  a  turtle, 
yet  both  are  reptiles.  It  is  in  the  relative  disposition  of  the 
parts  that  we  find  the  important  difference.  In  all  birds  the 
pelvic  girdle,  which  consists  of  the  three  bones  recognized  in 
man  as  the  pubis,  ischium,  and  ilium,  has  the  pubis  directed  in 
a  direction  more  or  less  parallel  with  that  of  the  ischium ;  in 
other  words,  backward.  In  all  reptiles,  on  the  other  hand, 
this  bone  is  directed  forward.  Again,  in  all,  or  nearly  all 
birds,  there  is  a  prominence,  known  as  the  cnemial  crest,  de- 
veloped on  the  upper  part  of  the  tibia,  for  the  attachment  of 
the  powerful  muscles  of  the  leg.  This  is  wanting  in  reptiles; 
and  further,  there  are  certain  peculiarities  connected  with  the 
articulation  of  the  foot  to  the  leg  in  birds  which  almost  im- 
mediately serve  to  distinguish  these  parts  from  the  similar 
parts  of  reptiles.  Have  we  any  reptilian  forms  which  at  all 
meet  the  divergencies  in  character  here  brought  out? 

DINOSAURS 

All  of  you  who  have  visited  our  museum  will  remember  the 
large  animal,  mounted  on  the  east  side,  which  was  discovered 
on  the  Hopkins  Farm,  near  Haddonfield,  !N".  J.,  some  thirty 
years  ago.  The  Hadrosaurus,  as  it  is  called,  is  the  represen- 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    405 

tative  of  a  large  group  of  reptiles,  the  dinosaurs,  or  terrible 
reptiles,  many  of  whose  members  depart  just  in  that  much  from 
other  reptiles  as  is  indicated  by  the  above  characters  supposed 
to  belong  to  birds.  In  other  words,  we  have  here  both  small 
and  giant  animals,  whose  progression  was  either  largely,  or 
mainly,  effected  by  the  hinder  appendages  alone;  in  which  the 
pubic  bone  of  the  pelvis  was  directed  backward,  more  or  less 
in  a  direction  parallel  with  that  of  the  ischium ;  in  which  the 
tibia  was  provided  with  a  well-developed  cnemial  crest;  and 
in  which,  finally,  the  ankle-joint  of  the  foot  and  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  toes  were  in  accordance  with  the  disposition  seen 
in  birds.  Many  of  these  animals,  furthermore,  had  the  pneu- 
matic character  of  the  bones  of  birds,  ensuring  a  certain  amount 
of  lightness  to  an  otherwise  ponderous  frame.  These  singular 
creatures,  one  of  which,  the  Iguanodon,  is  represented  in  the 
diagram  before  you,  first  appeared  in  the  Triassic  age,  or  in 
the  period  immediately  preceding  the  advent  of  the  earliest 
known  bird,  Archseopteryx,  although  they  do  not  acquire  any 
special  development  until  the  period  following,  the  Jurassic. 
It  is  to  them  that  we  owe  those  remarkable  foot-tracks  which 
have  made  the  red-sandstone  of  the  Connecticut  Valley  famous, 
and  which  for  full  half  a  century  after  their  discovery  were 
unhesitatingly  referred  to  giant  birds  of  a  type  thought  to  be 
more  or  less  identical  with  that  of  the  ostrich.  So  singularly 
striking  are  the  bird  characters  of  these  reptiles,  that  for  many 
years  they  have  been  looked  upon  by  many  naturalists  as  the 
stock  whence  the  non-flying  or  ostrich-like  birds  have  been  de- 
rived —  the  pterodactyls,  or  winged  reptiles,  furnishing  the  line 
to  the  winged  or  flying  birds  —  and,  indeed,  it  has  been  thought 
that  very  nearly  the  exact  type  could  be  pointed  out  which  gave 
departure  to  the  birds.  This  has  been  indicated  by  Professor 
Huxley  to  be  near  to  Compsognathus.  However  correct  or 
incorrect  this  determination  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  in 
the  face  of  the  evidence  before  us,  as  coming  from  the  side 
of  both  reptile  and  bird,  that  the  two  classes  of  animals  are 
simply  modifications  of  the  same  stock,  and  that  the  one  (the 
bird)  is  a  derivative  of  the  other  (reptile).  The  zoological 
relationship  clearly  points  to  the  nature  of  this  derivation, 
which  the  geological  evidence  amply  and  fully  confirms. 


406  AXGELO   HEILPRIX 


POPULAR  CONCEPTIONS  OF  MAMMALIA 

Were  the  Mammalia  in  any  way  specially  connected  in  their 
zoological  relationship  with  birds,  we  should  naturally  expect 
to  find  them  appear  in  succession  to  the  birds.  The  vertebrate 
line  would  then  be  an  absolutely  successive  one.  But  this  re- 
lationship does  not  exist.  For  a  long  time  zoologists  have  held 
to  the  opinion  that  these  highest  animals  were  more  nearly 
related  to  the  reptiles  than  to  any  other  class  of  the  Vertebrata, 
but  the  evidence  supporting  this  conclusion  was  all  but  the 
very  weakest.  The  fundamental  conception  of  a  mammalian 
departs  so  widely  from  that  of  any  other  representative  of  the 
great  series  to  which  it  belongs,  that  an  actual  comparison 
between  it  and  the  nearest  forms  appears  almost  impossible. 
But  recent  researches  have  thrown  new  light  upon  the  problem. 
That  most  obvious  distinction  separating  the  Mammalia  from 
all  other  animals  —  namely,  that  they  bring  forth  their  young 
alive,  and  that  the  young  is  nourished  directly  from  the  parent 
—  has  generally  been  considered  an  impassable  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  correlating  these  animals  with  animals  lower  in  the 
scale  of  organization  than  themselves.  It  is  barely  three  years 
since  we  had  the  startling  announcement,  made  independently 
by  two  investigators,  and  through  observation  on  two  distinct 
animals,  that  at  least  two  of  the  mammalian  types,  the  duck- 
bill and  the  echidna,  instead  of  developing  their  young  in  the 
normal  manner  of  the  animals  of  their  class,  bring  them  forth 
within  the  egg,  and  that  the  early  development  of  the  egg 
corresponds  with  the  development  of  the  egg  of  the  reptile. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  discoveries  made  in 
zoology  during  the  last  decade,  and  so  remarkable  is  it,  that 
when  a  similar  announcement  was  made  some  sixty  years  ago, 
and  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  naturalists  living  at  the 
time,  it  met  with  absolute  unbelief. 

RELATIONSHIP  BETWEEN  MAMMALS  AND  REPTILES 

The  evidence  bearing  upon  the  inter-relationship  of  mam- 
mals and  reptiles  is  rapidly  accumulating,  and  it  will  probably 
not  be  long  ere  we  will  be  able  to  point  to  the  connecting  form 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    407 

between  the  two.  From  the  existing  evidence  before  us  we 
are  safe  in  concluding  that  the  line  of  descent  of  these  animals 
is  direct  from  a  reptilian  stock ;  and  this  being  admitted,  there 
is  no  anomaly  in  the  fact  that  the  mammals  appeared  before 
the  birds.  Both  birds  and  mammals  are  divergent  modifica- 
tions from  a  common  axial  stock.  It  is  certainly  an  interesting 
feature  bearing  upon  the  reptilian  relationship  of  the  Mam- 
malia that  the  earliest  reptilian  forms,  those  of  the  Permian 
period,  are  the  only  animals  which  possess  the  remarkable 
dental  characters  of  the  Mammalia.  These,  as  is  well  known, 
have  the  teeth  divided  into  three  series  —  incisors,  canines,  and 
molars  —  a  structure  unknown  among  other  living  animals. 
But  in  the  reptiles  of  the  Permian  period,  which  may  perhaps 
be  looked  upon  as  the  ancestral  stock  whence  the  Mammalia 
were  derived,  the  same  dental  feature  is  presented. 

II 

We  have  thus  followed  the  succession  of  the  higher  groups 
of  animals  through  geological  time,  and  find  that  this  succession 
is  one  that  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  structural  relationship. 
Had  we  no  other  evidence  to  offer  in  favor  of  evolution  than 
that  which  I  have  laid  before  you  as  coming  from  fishes,  am- 
phibians, reptiles,  and  birds,  this  evidence,  in  my  mind,  would 
of  itself  be  amply  sufficient  to  prove  the  position.  But  there 
is  no  lack  of  other  evidence,  and  evidence  fully  as  strong,  and, 
if  possible,  still  stronger  than  that  which  I  have  given  you. 
Thus,  if  we  trace  the  histories  of  the  primary  and  secondary 
groups  of  the  larger  divisions  of  the  animal  kingdom,  we  meet 
with  a  repetition  of  much  the  same  order  of  appearance.  The 
fishes,  for  example,  are  represented  in  the  oldest  formations 
exclusively  by  such  forms  as  betray  a  comparatively  low  grade 
of  organization ;  these  are  the  sharks  and  ganoids,  in  which  the 
vertebral  column  remains  largely  in  the  embryonic  condition, 
becoming  only  partially  ossified  in  most  cases.  The  lung-fishes, 
which  are  a  direct  modification  of  the  ganoid  type,  represent- 
ing, however,  a  considerable  amount  of  specialization  in  the 
development  of  a  respiratory  apparatus  adapted  to  breathing 
directly  the  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere,  appear  considerably 


408  ANGELO  HEILPRIN 

later,  possibly  in  the  Carboniferous  period,  but  are  already 
preceded  by  an  intermediate  type,  that  of  the  dipteroid  ganoid. 
The  more  highly  organized  fishes,  the  teleosts,  or  bony  fishes, 
appear  for  the  first  time,  as  far  as  we  know,  in  the  deposits 
of  the  Cretaceous  period,  and  may  consequently  be  looked  upon 
as  a  comparatively  modern  group ;  but  even  here  we  find  that 
this  highest  group  was  immediately  preceded  in  time  by  a  type 
of  ganoid-plated  fishes,  the  Leptolepidse,  which  in  so  far  par- 
take of  the  characters  of  both  ganoid  and  teleost  as  to  have 
induced  naturalists  to  place  them  alternately  now  in  the  one 
group,  now  in  the  other. 

ELIMINATION  OF  LOWER  FORMS 

When  we  cast  a  broad  glance  over  the  existing  fish  fauna 
of  the  globe,  and  compare  it  with  that  of  the  earlier  geological 
periods,  we  find  that  it  differs,  not  only  in  the  introduction 
of  types  of  a  higher  grade  of  organization,  but  in  the  actual 
elimination  of  the  lower  structural  forms.  The  ganoids,  for 
example,  which  are  numbered  by  hundreds  of  species  in  the 
interval  between  the  Devonian  and  Jurassic  periods,  are  prac- 
tically extinct  at  the  present  day,  numbering  but  a  mere  hand- 
ful of  species.  A  somewhat  similar,  although  less  marked, 
elimination  is  also  distinctive  of  the  selachians  (sharks,  rays). 
We  thus  find  a  complete  rotation  marking  the  succession  of 
these  animals.  Evolution  or  transformism  is  the  expression 
of  necessity  for  a  change ;  hence,  the  rotation  of  forms.  Among 
the  amphibians,  reptiles,  and  birds,  likewise,  we  observe  that 
the  older  forms  are  very  different  from  those  now  living,  but 
the  difference  becomes  less  and  less  marked  as  we  approach 
the  present  day.  The  same  holds  equally  true  with  the  mam- 
mals, whose  earliest  representatives  are  again  forms  of  a  very 
low  grade  of  organization.  These  are  the  marsupials  of  the 
Triassic  and  Jurassic  periods,  forms  more  or  less  closely 
allied  to  some  of  the  lowly  types  inhabiting  the  Australian 
continent. 

The  chart  before  you  indicates  the  rise  and  fall  of  this 
highest  order  of  animals.  It  will  be  seen  that  they  date  their 
first  appearance  from  the  Triassic  period,  where,  however,  there 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    409 

are  but  three  or  four  genera,  and  a  barely  larger  number  of 
individuals,  represented.  One  of  these,  and  the  first  species 
described,  is  on  the  table  before  you,  known  as  Dromatherium. 
A  further  development  takes  place  in  the  Jurassic  period,  when 
a  broad  hiatus  follows.  No  mammalian  remains  have  thus  far 
been  discovered  in  any  indisputable  Cretaceous  deposit,  and  I 
may  at  once  confess  my  inability  to  satisfactorily  account  for 
this  non-appearance.  But  I  feel  perfectly  safe  in  prophesying 
that  they  will  yet  be  found,  and  were  I  as  sure  of  many  other 
things  generally  considered  positive  as  I  am  of  this  one,  I 
could  remain  satisfied. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  OUR  MODERN  FAUNA 

In  the  first  stage  of  the  Tertiary  period,  known  as  the 
Eocene,  we  meet  with  the  earliest  of  the  placental  mammals, 
or  those  forms  in  which  direct  union  is  established  between 
the  young  and  parent  during  the  process  of  development.  From 
this  period,  it  might  be  said,  dates  the  origin  of  our  modern 
fauna.  It  will  be  seen  from  the  chart  before  you  that  only 
about  one-half  of  the  existing  orders  of  quadrupeds  are  repre- 
sented in  the  Eocene  period;  these  are  the  marsupials,  insec- 
tivores,  rodents,  whales,  hoofed-animals,  bats,  lemurs,  and  pos- 
sibly even  monkeys.  In  addition  to  these  there  are  a  number 
of  orders  which  have  no  living  representatives  at  the  present 
day.  In  the  Miocene,  or  middle  Tertiary  period,  there  are 
superadded  the  edentates,  or  toothless  animals,  the  carnivores, 
sirenians,  elephants,  and  true  monkeys.  Per  contra,  the  special 
Eocene  orders  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made,  have 
completely  disappeared,  so  that  in  the  Miocene  period  only 
those  orders  of  quadrupeds  are  represented  which  have  living 
representatives  in  our  existing  fauna.  But  it  must  not  be 
construed  from  this  that  there  is  a  true  faunal  identity;  this 
only  appears  in  the  most  recent  or  Post-Pliocene  period. 

LESSENING  OF  FAUNAL  DIFFERENCES 

From  the  beginning  of  the  Tertiary  period  to  the  present 
day  there  is  a  steadily  progressive  approximation  to  modern 


410  ANGELO  HEILPRIX 

type-structures,  but  this  approximation  is  a  very  gradual  one. 
This  will  appear  clear  to  you  when  it  is  stated  that,  with 
barely  a  single  exception,  not  only  are  all  the  Eocene  species 
and  genera  of  mammals  different  from  those  of  the  present  day, 
but  even  the  families  are  very  largely  different;  furthermore, 
there  are  a  number  of  orders  indicated  which  have  no  repre- 
sentation in  the  modern  fauna.  The  only  known  living  types 
of  mammals  which  are  generically  represented  in  the  Eocene 
period  are  two  genera  of  bats  —  Vespertilio  and  Vesperugo  — 
and  the  opossum  (Didelphys).  In  the  Miocene  period  the 
faunal  difference  is  measurably  lessened  by  the  elimination  of 
the  special  orders  which  belong  to  the  period  preceding,  and  by 
the  introduction  of  a  considerable  number  of  modern  genera, 
such  as  the  porcupine,  beaver,  squirrel,  rabbit,  tapir,  rhinoceros, 
hippopotamus,  hog,  deer,  giraffe,  elephant,  cat,  dog,  and  hyena. 
The  families,  moreover,  are  very  largely  identical  with  exist- 
ing ones,  so  that  in  its  entirety  the  Miocene  fauna  may  in 
a  broad  way  be  looked  upon  as  distinctly  modern.  The 
species  of  this  period  are,  however,  all,  or  nearly  all,  dis- 
tinct from  those  now  living.  In  the  period  following,  the 
Pliocene,  there  is  a  still  further  approximation  to  the  modern 
fauna  in  the  introduction  of  an  additional  number  of  exist- 
ing types  —  such  as  the  sheep,  goats,  and  oxen,  the  bear  and 
camel,  and  among  monkeys,  the  macaques.  Indeed,  the  greater 
number  of  the  genera  are  identical  with  the  genera  of  to- 
day, and  even  a  limited  number  of  living  species  appear 
for  the  first  time.  One  of  these  is  the  common  hippopota- 
mus, which,  consequently,  represents  about  the  oldest  type 
of  existing  quadrupeds.  In  the  Post-Pliocene  period  the 
correspondence  between  the  existing  and  extinct  faunas  is 
still  further  increased  through  the  large  preponderance  of 
recent  species.  On  the  border-line  of  this  and  the  preceding 
period  we  meet  with  the  earliest  unequivocal  remains  of  man 
himself. 

The  correspondence  between  the  recent  and  extinct  mam- 
malian faunas  may  be  conveniently  summarized  as  follows: 

Post-Pliocene  period 
Mammalia  principally  of  living  species. 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    411 

Pliocene  period 
Mammalia  principally  of  recent  genera  —  living  species  rare. 

Miocene  period 

Mammalia  principally  of  living  families  —  extinct  genera 
numerous;  species  extinct.' 

Eocene  period 

Mammalia  with  numerous  extinct  families  and  orders.  With 
two  or  three  exceptions,  all  the  genera  extinct.  Species  all 
extinct 

I  appeal  to  the  facts  before  you,  and  ask,  Could  there  be  a 
more  beautiful  demonstration  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  a  fauna 
tending  in  the  direction  of  general  succession  ?  Do  we  not  see 
in  the  wreck  of  the  past  faunas  the  roots  of  the  fauna  of  our 
own  day,  and  can  we  close  our  eyes  to  the  evidence  of  develop- 
ment that  is  here  presented  to  us  ?  A  skeptical  mind  may, 
however,  still  urge  that  this  is  but  a  fortuitous  succession,  and 
that  we  have  failed  to  bring  forward  proof  of  such  transformism 
as  will  permit  us  to  see  that  the  modern  groups  which  succeed 
the  more  ancient  ones  are  necessarily  developed  from  these. 
But  proof  in  this  direction  is  by  no  means  wanting.  When 
we  trace  back  the  histories  of  some  of  our  existing  groups  of 
animals  we  find  that  the  characters  by  which  they  are  defined 
become  less  and  less  marked,  until  they  are  almost  completely 
lost,  when  the  group  as  such  disappears.  In  other  words,  the 
specialized  animals  of  to-day,  or  rather  their  representatives, 
become  more  and  more  generalized  as  we  trace  them  back  in 
geological  time.  Thus,  the  Carnivora  lose  much  of  the  true 
type  of  carnivore  structure  in  the  early  part  of  the  Miocene 
period,  and  by  almost  insensible  modifications  pass  off  into  a 
group  of  animals,  their  immediate  forerunners  in  the  Eocene 
period  —  the  Creodonta — which  combine  about  equally  the 
characters  of  the  Carnivora  with  those  of  the  Insectivora. 
Thus,  the  Creodonta  stand  intermediate  between  two  of  our 
modern  groups  which  are  seemingly  very  far  removed  from 
one  another.  In  the  same  way,  if  we  take  some  of  the  more 
prominent  families  of  the  Carnivora,  the  bears  and  dogs,  for 
example,  we  find  that  their  special  structural  features  like- 


412  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

wise  disappear  —  the  bears  becoming  less  and  less  bears, 
and  the  dogs  less  and  less  distinctively  dogs,  until  we  meet 
with  an  animal,  the  Amphicyon,  which  is  about  as  much  the 
one  as  the  other.  Similarly,  the  cats  become  less  and  less 
cat-like,  and  they  can  be  traced  down  to  animals  which  on 
the  one  side  link  them  to  the  civets,  and  on  the  other,  to  the 


Again,  the  large  group  of  the  lemurs,  those  singular  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Quadrumana  which  impress  such  a  distinct 
individuality  upon  the  fauna  of  Madagascar,  become  less  and 
less  lemurine  the  farther  back  we  trace  them,  approximating 
very  closely  to  the  type  of  insectivore  structure.  So  complete 
is  this  approximation  that  the  most  experienced  zoologists  are 
at  a  loss  to  determine  in  many  cases  whether  certain  ancient 
types  are  in  reality  lemurs  or  insectivores.  Other  animal 
groups  likewise  converge  toward  this  same  group  of  the  Insec- 
tivora,  which  (or  certain  immediate  allies)  are  now  considered 
to  represent  the  stem  from  which  most  of  the  existing  placental 
mammals  have  been  developed.  We  thus  see  how  unstable  are 
the  characters  which  have  been  formulated  toward  the  proper 
delimitation  of  animal  groups.  The  beautiful  classification  of 
Cuvier,  which  was  founded  on  the  assumption  that  the  living 
organisms  represented  are  the  only  types  known  to  nature,  is 
no  longer  applicable  in  the  sense  it  was  intended  by  its  illus- 
trious promulgator,  and  it  is  vain  to  plead  the  individuality 
or  want  of  convergence  of  animal  groups. 

PROOFS  OF  INDIVIDUAL  VARIATION 

But  let  us  press  the  inquiry  still  further,  and  within  a 
narrower  sphere.  I  have  thus  far  treated  of  the  relations  of  the 
different  higher  groups  of  animals,  the  limitations  of  which  may 
not  be  very  clear  to  the  non-scientific  mind.  But  where,  the 
skeptical  mind  may  ask,  are  the  proofs  of  individual  variation,  of 
variation  in  special  organic  structures  ?  I  will  attempt  to  lay 
before  you  some  of  these,  and  take  my  first  illustration  from  the 
class  of  fishes.  In  the  vast  majority  of  the  ordinary  bony  fishes, 
as  is  well  known,  the  tail  is  nearly  equally  divided  into  two  lobes, 
and  is  said  to  be  homocercd.  In  sharks  and  rays,  as  represen- 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    413 

tatives  of  the  cartilaginous  fishes,  on  the  other  hand,  the  tail 
is  typically  unequally  lobed,  and  is  said  to  be  Tieterocercal. 
This,  as  might  have  been  expected,  seeing  that  the  sharks  repre- 
sent a  comparatively  low  ichthyic  type,  is  also  the  case  with  the 
earliest  fishes,  with  both  sharks  and  ganoids,  and  not  till  an 
intermediate  middle  period  do  we  find  a  tendency  on  the  part 
of  the  tail  toward  homocercality.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
Jurassic  ganoids  are  provided  with  the  modern  form  of  tail, 
and  these,  again,  are  preceded  by  a  form,  Semionotus,  in  which 
the  tail  is  of  a  distinctively  transitional  character. 

As  pertaining  to  the  group  of  reptiles  I  can  present  to  you 
an  equally  beautiful  and  conclusive  case  of  the  modification 
of  special  structures.  The  crocodiles  represent  a  fairly  ancient 
group  of  reptiles,  beginning  with  the  Triassic  period  of  time; 
the  recent  genera  date  from  the  period  of  the  chalk.  In  their 
history  they  present  a  remarkable  series  of  developmental 
changes.  In  the  modern  crocodiles,  and  in  those  of  the  later 
Cretaceous  period,  two  series  of  bones  belonging  to  the  roof 
of  the  mouth,  known  as  the  palatines  and  pterygoids,  are  so 
disposed  as  to  form  the  boundaries  of  the  posterior  nostrils ; 
in  the  crocodiles  that  preceded  these,  or  those  of  the  early 
Cretaceous  and  Jurassic  periods,  only  the  palatines  are  pro- 
duced to  form  these  nares ;  and  in  the  still  earlier  and  earliest 
forms,  those  of  the  Triassic  period,  neither  the  one  bone  nor 
the  other  is  concerned  in  the  structure  of  the  parts  in  question. 
Correlatively  with  these  changes  other  modifications,  scarcely 
less  significant,  mark  the  rise  of  this  very  remarkable  animal 
group.  Thus,  the  earlier  crocodilian  forms  retain  a  primitive 
character  in  the  biconcave  form  of  the  vertebrae  —  a  structure 
belonging  primarily  to  the  lowest  group  of  vertebrates,  the 
fishes.  This  structure  is  replaced  in  the  Cretaceous  period  by 
the  cup-and-ball,  or  proccelous  vertebra,  which  is  also  the  type 
of  the  Tertiary  and  modern  forms. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  HOESE 

Other  instances  of  similar  variation  and  progression  could 
readily  be  cited,  but  my  limited  time  will  only  permit  me  to 
dwell  upon  a  few  very  striking  cases  drawn  from  the  class  of 


414:  A^GELO   HEILPRIX 

mammals.  Tlie  history  of  the  horse  furnishes,  perhaps,  the 
most  complete  series  of  structural  modifications  which  permit 
us  to  trace  the  ancestry  of  an  animal  in  very  nearly  its  minutest 
details.  The  chart  before  you  indicates  these  modifications 
in  a  series  of  horse-like  animals  which  carries  the  line  of  de- 
scent of  our  modern  animal  back  to  the  Eocene  period,  and  to 
an  animal  so  very  different,  that  were  it  known  by  itself  alone, 
it  would  be  classified  by  zoologists,  not  only  as  a  species  dis- 
tinct from  the  modern  horse,  but  as  a  distinct  genus,  repre- 
senting an  entirely  different  family,  and  even  a  wholly  different 
sub-order.  The  connecting  ties,  however,  absolutely  establish 
the  serial  line  of  progression,  and  indelibly  mark  the  pedigree. 
The  history  of  the  European  horse  is  almost  as  complete  as  that 
of  the  American,  but  remarkable  though  it  may  appear  on  any 
but  an  evolutionary  hypothesis,  its  first  ancestral  forms  include 
an  animal  different  from  any  of  the  earlier  equine  progenitors 
of  the  "New  World,  and  one  that  holds  equal  claim  to  being  the 
true  progenitor  of  the  tapir  and  tapiroid  animals.  This  is  the 
Palseotherium,  several  species  of  which,  ranging  in  size  between 
the  deer  and  horse,  have  been  described,  and  whose  remains 
from  the  early  Tertiary  strata  of  the  Paris  Basin  furnished 
the  material  for  one  of  the  classic  memoirs  of  the  illustrious 
Cuvier. 

The  modifications  here  referred  to  are  primarily  the  greater 
or  less  differentiation  of  the  elements  of  the  foot  and  leg  (fore 
and  aft).  In  the  modern  horse  there  is  but  a  single  toe  to 
each  foot,  which  is  supported  by  a  single  metapodial  (cannon- 
bone),  but  in  the  more  ancient  horse-like  animals  the  feet 
were  polydactyl  in  character,  being  furnished  with  three,  four, 
or  even  five  toes.  This  is  seemingly  a  broad  difference,  and 
it  might  reasonably  be  supposed  that  there  must  exist  strong 
grounds  for  uniting  animals  that  appear  so  widely  removed 
from  one  another.  The  rationale  of  our  classification  is  the 
fact  that  between  the  earliest  horse-like  animals  and  the  modern 
horse  we  have  a  series  of  transitional  forms  which  show  almost 
every  grade  of  foot  structure  leading  from  polydactylism  to 
monodactylism,  the  toes  undergoing  gradual  reduction  in  num- 
ber, and  (excepting  the  single  toe  that  is  retained)  growing 
smaller  in  size  as  we  proceed  from  the  more  ancient  to  the  more 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    415 

modern  forms.  This  gradation  is  beautifully  illustrated  in 
the  chart  before  you,  where  the  supernumerary,  and  to  an  ex- 
tent functionless,  toes  of  the  Eocene  Hyracotherium,  which  is 
followed  by  the  less  and  less  distinctively  polydactyl  forms  of 
the  Oligocene,  Miocene,  and  early  Pliocene  periods,  are  seen  to 
be  represented  in  the  later  Pliocene  Pliohippus  and  the  recent 
horse  (Equus)  by  a  simple  pair  of  "  splints  "  attached  to  the 
cannon-bone.  Beyond  the  Hyracotherium  we  have  still  a  full 
five-toed  animal,  the  Phenacodus,  which  is  now  generally  rec- 
ognized as  the  earliest  known  progenitor  of  the  horse  tribe. 
Correlatively  with  the  progressive  changes  in  the  structure  of 
the  foot,  there  are  equally  well-marked  modifications  in  the 
disposition  of  the  bones  of  the  arm  and  leg,  and  in  the  form 
and  complexity  of  the  grinding  teeth,  which  are  also  illustrated 
on  the  chart  before  you. 

That  some  of  these  modifications  belong  as  well  to  the  horse 
as  a  specific  animal  as  they  do  to  the  horse  as  a  tribe,  is  con- 
clusively shown  by  the  circumstance  that  we  even  now  occa- 
sionally meet  with  living  horses  possessed  of  more  than  one 
toe  to  the  foot,  and,  indeed,  it  has  been  affirmed  —  although 
the  statement  still  lacks  full  confirmation  —  that  the  embryo 
horse  is  polydactyl.  These  are  important  facts  bearing  upon 
the  developmental  history  of  the  animal. 

CAMELINE  ANIMALS 

The  cameline  animals,  especially  those  of  the  New  World, 
present  a  connecting  series  or  chain  almost  as  complete  as  that 
which  has  been  established  for  the  horse.  The  existing  animals 
of  this  group,  in  common  with  other  ruminants,  have  the  bones 
of  the  middle-foot  (the  metapodials)  united  into  a  single 
"  cannon-bone,"  as  in  the  deer,  but  they  differ  strikingly  from 
all  other  members  of  the  broad  group  which  they  represent  in 
possessing  a  pair  of  incisor  teeth  in  the  upper  jaw.  By  some 
naturalists  the  absence  of  superior  cutting  teeth  in  the  rumi- 
nants has  been  supposed  to  stand  in  direct  connection  with  the 
development  of  horns,  but  just  in  what  manner  has  not  been 
definitely  determined.  It  is,  however,  an  interesting  circum- 
stance, that  the  cameline  forms,  almost  alone  among  ruminants, 


416  ANGELO   HEILPKINr 

are  entirely  destitute  of  horns,  while  they  possess  the  peculiar 
dental  character  above  referred  to. 

In  following  back  the  ancestral  line  of  these  hornless  rumi- 
nants we  can  detect  a  series  of  very  remarkable  and  gradual 
modifications  which  connect  the  modern  animal  with  animal 
forms  very  unlike  itself.  Thus,  in  one  of  the  earliest  members 
of  the  cameline  series,  the  Oligocene  or  Miocene  Poebrotherium, 
whose  species  appear  to  have  had  the  slender  and  graceful 
proportions  of  the  modern  gazelles,  the  metapodial  bones  were 
distinct,  and  the  mouth  was  furnished  with  a  complete  series 
of  incisor  teeth.  This  distinguishing  dental  character  is  re- 
tained in  the  succeeding  Protolabis  (Middle  Miocene),  but 
whether  or  not  the  metapodials  were  united  into  a  single  cannon- 
bone  is  still  unknown.  In  the  Upper  Miocene  Procamelus, 
whose  forms  ranged  in  size  intermediate  between  the  sheep  and 
camel,  the  incisor  teeth  have  been  reduced  to  the  normal  num- 
ber found  in  the  camels,  although  the  premolars  still  conform  to 
the  formula  4/4,  instead  of  3/2,  which  distinguishes  the  genus 
Camelus.  An  intermediate  position  between  Procamelus  and 
Oamelus  is  held  by  the  Pliocene  genus  Pliauchenia,  which  pos- 
sesses but  three  premolars  in  the  lower  jaw,  while  nearly  the 
extreme  term  of  reduction  in  this  part  of  the  dental  series  is 
found  in  the  late  Pliocene  and  recent  llamas  (Auchenia),  which 
retain  but  two  premolars  in  the  upper  jaw  and  a  single  one  in 
the  lower  jaw.  Finally,  in  the  nearly  contemporary  genus 
Holomeniscus,  which  embraced  animal  forms  fully  equalling 
the  camel  in  size,  and  ranging  from  Oregon  to  the  valley  of 
Mexico,  there  is  but  a  single  premolar  left  to  each  side  of  either 
jaw. 

The  eliminative  development  that  has  here  been  traced  cor- 
responds very  closely  with  the  conditions  presented  by  the  living 
animal  in  passing  from  its  embryonic  to  its  adult  condition. 
Thus,  in  the  foetal  condition  of  probably  all  ruminants  the 
metapodial  bones  are  distinct,  as  in  the  early  Poebrotherium; 
moreover,  the  animals  are  provided  with  cutting  teeth  in  the 
upper  jaw,  in  the  manner  of  their  ancient  progenitors.  Pro- 
fessor Cope,  who  has  given  close  attention  to  the  study  of  the 
development  of  the  cameline  race,  further  shows  that  very  young 
camels  have  the  additional  premolar  of  Pliauchenia,  and  that 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    417 

this  tooth  is  shed  at  an  early  period,  very  rarely  persisting  for 
any  length  of  time.  Similarly,  the  anterior  premolar  of  the 
normal  camel  is  found  in  the  young  llama,  but  it  is  dropped 
long  before  the  animal  attains  maturity. 

MODIFICATION  OF  CERTAIN  OEGANS 

The  investigation  of  the  causes  which  have  wrought  these 
remarkable  changes  in  the  animal  frame  constitutes  more  prop- 
erly a  part  of  zoological  or  physiological  inquiry,  and  I  can  but 
briefly  refer  to  the  modifications  as  resulting  primarily  from 
the  interaction  of  mechanical  forces.  The  use  and  disuse  of 
parts  must  necessarily  have  a  direct  bearing  upon  their  ultimate 
development,  and  similarly  the  manner  of  use  must  largely  in- 
fluence the  manner  of  growth  of  such  parts.  These  are  condi- 
tions known  to  us  in  our  every  day  experience  but,  owing  to 
the  very  limited  time  over  which  our  direct  observation  extends, 
we  are  generally  able  to  detect  only  minor  changes,  and  miss  the 
grander  effects  which  are  dependent  upon  the  action  of  time. 
The  swift-footed  animal,  which  in  the  process  of  rapid  loco- 
motion elevates  the  body  so  as  to  weight  it  principally  upon  the 
extremities  of  the  toes,  leads  the  way  to  the  gradual  disuse  of 
those  toes  which,  in  the  required  position,  are  no  longer  able 
to  give  support  to  the  body ;  hence,  a  consequent  degeneration, 
and  the  formation  of  those  apparently  "  accessory  "  and  more 
or  less  functionless  toes  which  we  see  in  the  hog  and  many  other 
animals.  Similarly,  the  necessity  for  a  rigid  frame  combined 
with  lightness  would  tend  to  bring  about  a  consolidation  of 
those  bones,  like  the  metapodials,  whose  independent  action  may 
now  no  longer  be  required.  The  character  of  the  food  supply, 
necessitating  definite  methods  in  the  way  of  eating  or  mastica- 
tion, must  have  a  direct  effect  upon  the  masticating  apparatus, 
and  conduce  toward  the  formation  of  the  special  dental  struc- 
tures which  are  distinctive  of  the  different  animal  groups. 

Perhaps  no  more  beautiful  illustration  of  the  special  modi- 
fication of  a  certain  organ  or  structure  can  be  found  than  that 
exemplified  in  the  development  of  the  deer's  horn.  Everyone 
is  aware  that  in  our  ordinary  deer  with  branched  antlers  the 
process  of  growth  is  a  regular  and  successive  one.  Before  the 


418  AKGELO   HEILPEIX 

first  shedding  we  have  a  single  solid  horn;  after  this  shedding 
a  single  tine  is  developed ;  then  a  second,  and  a  third,  until  we 
have  the  complicated  structure  of  the  typical  antler.  Now, 
precisely  this  system  of  progression  can  be  traced  in  the  geolog- 
ical history  of  these  animals.  In  the  early  cervine  animals  of 
the  Middle  Miocene  period,  as  has  been  so  clearly  stated  by  Pro- 
fessor Boyd  Dawkins,  the  horn  is  a  simple  forked  crown;  in 
the  Upper  Miocene  it  becomes  more  complex,  but  is  still  small 
and  erect,  as  in  the  roe;  in  the  Pliocene  it  becomes  larger  and 
longer,  and  altogether  more  complex  and  differentiated,  some 
forms,  such  as  the  Cervus  dicranios  of  Nesti,  having  the  most 
complicated  antlers  known  either  in  the  living  or  fossil  state. 
Seeing  this  steady  progression  in  the  complication  of  the  antler, 
it  might  naturally  be  expected  that  were  we  to  trace  this  de- 
velopment backward  we  should  gradually  come  upon  a  zero 
of  complication,  and  that  eventually  the  horn  would  completely 
disappear.  And  this  is  precisely  what  we  find  to  be  the  case. 
The  earliest  cervine  animals,  or  those  of  the  Lower  Miocene 
period,  are  absolutely  hornless,  and  the  series  is  thus  made 
complete.  The  question  naturally  arises:  Are  these  earliest 
hornless  forerunners  of  the  true  deer  deer  or  antelopes  ?  The 
fundamental  distinction  between  these  two  groups  of  animals 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  horns  of  the  antelope  are  hollow,  instead 
of  solid,  as  in  the  deer,  simple,  instead  of  branched,  and  that 
they  are  not  periodically  shed.  But  if  there  are  no  horns 
present,  how  are  we  to  determine,  in  the  absence  of  these  dis- 
tinguishing characters,  the  actual  position  of  the  animal  under 
consideration  ?  This  is  a  problem  that  does  not  admit  of  ready 
solution ;  indeed,  there  is  a  strong  probability  that  the  hornless 
animals  of  the  Lower  Miocene  period  were  ancestral  to  both  deer 
and  antelopes,  a  dual  development  starting  out,  just  as  we  have 
seen  to  be  the  case  with  many  other  animals,  in  diverging  direc- 
tions. The  high  probability  of  this  dual  development  is  forced 
upon  us,  apart  from  all  other  considerations,  by  the  remarkable 
case  of  prong-horn  of  the  western  plains,  which  is  a  hollow- 
horned  ruminant,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  true  antelope, 
yet  with  divided  horns,  whose  sheaths  are  periodically  shed,  in 
the  manner  of  the  shedding  of  the  horns  of  the  deer. 

The  deer  have  quite  recently  furnished  one  of  the  most  in- 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES   OF   EVOLUTION    419 

teresting  examples  of  a  connecting  form,  or  so-called  missing 
link,  in  an  animal  exhumed  from  the  swamps  of  northern  New 
Jersey,  which  stands  intermediate  between  the  stag  and  elk. 
This  relation  is  made  clear  by  the  figures  of  the  skulls  of  the 
three  species  which  are  placed  before  you.  In  the  stag,  it  will 
be  observed,  the  skull  is  high,  and  shows  but  little  of  that  an- 
terior attenuation  which  is  such  a  distinctive  feature  of  the 
skull  of  the  elk.  The  nasal  bones  of  the  former,  again,  are 
remarkably  long  when  compared  with  the  similar  bones  of  the 
latter,  and  the  premaxillaries,  instead  of  being  projected  for- 
ward along  the  horizontal  plane  of  the  base  of  the  skull,  are 
deflected  sharply  downward.  In  all  these  points,  it  will  be 
seen,  the  newly  discovered  form  (Cervalces)  holds  an  inter- 
mediate position.  The  skull  exhibits  a  partial  attenuation  an- 
teriorly, the  premaxillaries  are  directed  about  equally  down- 
ward and  forward,  and  the  nasal  bones  are  measurably  con- 
tracted in  size.  The  horns  likewise  furnish  characters  which 
further  serve  to  establish  this  dual  relationship. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  INTELLECT 

There  is  still  one  phase  of  development  which  remains  to  be 
considered  —  the  development  of  intellect  or  brain  force.  Al- 
though seemingly  an  intangible  subject,  geology  affords  evi- 
dence in  regard  to  it  fully  as  important  as  that  which  attaches 
to  the  development  of  bone  or  muscle.  No  absolute  relation- 
ship has  as  yet  been  determined  to  exist  between  the  size  of 
the  brain  and  mental  capacity,  the  latter  being  largely,  or  even 
principally,  dependent  upon  the  quality  of  the  brain  material, 
but,  in  a  general  way,  it  may  be  admitted  that  the  larger  the 
brain  in  proportion  to  the  body,  the  greater  will  be  the  amount 
of  brain  force  generated  by  it.  Using  this  most  legitimate 
standard  as  a  basis  for  comparison,  we  are  brought  to  an  as- 
tonishing result  when  a  study  is  made  of  the  brains  of  the 
earlier  animals,  the  outlines  of  many  of  which  have  been  as 
perfectly  preserved  as  the  casts  of  the  interiors  of  shells.  From 
this  study  it  appears  that  all  the  Tertiary  mammals  had  com- 
paratively small  brains,  and  that  there  has  been  a  gradual  in- 
crease in  the  size  of  the  brain  mass  from  the  earlier  to  the 


420  AKGELO   HEILPRItf 

later  parts  of  this  period,  the  increase  being  almost  wholly 
confined  to  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  In  the  earlier  forms  — 
indeed,  until  late  in  the  Tertiary  —  the  hemispheres  left  the 
cerebellum  entirely  uncovered,  and  the  olfactory  lobes  were 
correspondingly  largely  developed.  The  brain  was,  in  fact, 
more  nearly  reptilian  in  character  than  mammalian.  The  series 
of  diagrams  before  you  illustrate  the  development  of  the  brain 
in  certain  mammals  of  the  Tertiary  period  more  or  less  closely 
connected  in  their  ordinal  relations. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  figures  that  the  relative  size  of  the 
brain  in  the  older  mammalian  types  was  small  when  compared 
with  that  of  the  forms  which  successively  followed  them.  In 
some  of  the  Dinocerata,  which  were  by  far  the  largest  of  the 
Eocene  Mammalia,  nearly  equalling  the  elephant  in  size,  the 
brain  was  so  small  that  it  could  have  been  passed  through  the 
neural  arches  of  the  lumbar  or  sacral  vertebrae !  In  relative  size 
this  diminutive  brain,  which  is  proportionately  the  smallest 
brain  known  among  mammals,  whether  recent  or  fossil,  is  sur- 
passed by  the  brains  of  many  reptiles.  Hoplophoneus  oreo- 
dontis,  one  of  the  sabre-toothed  cats,  although  of  about  the  size 
of  a  panther,  had  a  brain  no  larger  than  that  of  the  domestic 
cat  The  peculiar  sulci  or  gyri  seen  on  the  dorsal  aspect  of  the 
brains  of  modern  mammals  were  also  largely  absent  in  the 
earlier  forms,  or  were  disposed  longitudinally,  instead  of  trans- 
versely, as  we  find  them  in  the  lowest  of  recent  placental  mam- 
mals —  the  rodents,  edentates,  and  insectivores.  The  same 
law  of  cerebral  development  which  is  here  indicated  for  the 
Mammalia  is  also  applicable  to  reptiles  and  birds,  and  in  prob- 
ably equal  degree.  I  have  placed  before  you  a  drawing  of  one 
of  the  largest  of  the  dinosaurian  reptiles,  the  Jurassic  Bron- 
tosaurus,  an  animal  measuring  probably  fifty  feet  in  length, 
yet  in  which  the  weight  of  the  entire  skull  does  not  appear  to 
have  exceeded  that  of  the  fourth  vertebra  of  the  neck. 


GEOLOGICAL  FORMATIONS  AND  FATJNAL  ANTECEDENTS 

Before  dismissing  this  part  of  my  subject  I  must  direct  your 
attention  to  one  phase  of  the  inquiry  which  is  as  well  geo- 
graphic as  it  is  geologic  in  its  scope.  It  is  a  familiar  fact  that 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    421 

the  different  parts  of  the  earth's  surface  are  to-day  characterized 
by  distinct  faunal  associations.  Thus,  we  recognize  a  South 
American  fauna  as  distinguished  from  an  African,  a  Eurasiatic 
fauna  as  distinguished  from  an  African  or  Australian,  and  so 
on.  Now  if,  as  is  contended  by  the  upholders  of  organic  evo- 
lution, our  existing  faunas  have  been  developed  from  their 
immediate  faunal  antecedents,  we  must  have  some  indication 
or  foreshadowing  in  the  latest  geological  formations  of  the 
faunal  characters  which,  in  a  broad  way,  serve  to  distinguish 
the  several  zoogeographical  regions.  And  this  is  precisely  what 
we  find.  You  have  already  learned  that  in  the  earlier  Tertiary 
periods  of  mammalian  history  the  existing  animal  forms  were 
almost  wholly  different  from  the  forms  of  to-day,  and  that 
they  became  less  and  less  different  as  we  approached  the  modern 
era.  But  with  this  distinctness  there  appears  to  have  been 
more  of  a  general  correspondence  between  the  faunas  of  the 
different  parts  of  the  earth's  surface,  so  that  the  zoogeographical 
boundaries  which  we  now  recognize  could  at  best  be  only  par- 
tially drawn.  It  is  only  in  the  Post-Pliocene,  or  latest  Ter- 
tiary, period  that  the  approximation  between  the  past  and  re- 
cent faunas  has  been  so  far  established  as  to  permit  us  to  trace 
clearly  the  existing  zoogeographical  relations,  and  to  state  that 
the  modern  fauna  has  been  sketched  out  in  place.  Thus,  in  the 
Australian  Post-Pliocene  marsupials  Diprotodon,  Nototherium, 
Thylacoleo,  and  their  allies,  we  have  the  forerunners  of  the 
various  marsupial  forms  that  now  characterize  the  continental 
fauna ;  in  the  giant  birds  Palapteryx,  Dinornis,  Mionornis,  etc., 
from  New  Zealand,  Dromseornis  from  Australia,  and  ^Epyornis 
from  Madagascar,  the  forerunners  of  the  wingless  apteryx  and 
the  struthious  birds  from  the  same  or  neighboring  regions; 
and  in  the  giant  South- American  edentates,  Glyptodon,  Megathe- 
rium, Mylodon,  and  their  allies,  the  representative,  if  not  the 
ancestral,  forms  of  the  existing  sloth,  armadillo,  and  ant-eater. 

Ill 

There  has  been  much  speculation,  and  no  less  controversy, 
during  recent  years,  concerning  the  birthplace  and  origin  of 
man,  and  I  don't  know  that  we  are  any  nearer  the  solution  of 


422  ANGELO  HEILPRLN" 

these  questions  than  we  were  immediately  after  the  publica- 
tion of  Mr.  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species,"  nearly  thirty  years 
ago.  That  man  is  a  descendant  of  some  two-legged  and  two- 
armed  creature  much  like  himself,  although  less  hominine  hoth 
in  the  development  of  his  intellectual  faculties  and  the  struc- 
ture of  his  bodily  frame,  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt,  but 
science  has  thus  far  failed  to  make  known  this  earliest  and 
much  looked  for  preadamite.  I  am  not  prepared  to  share  the 
enthusiasm  of  certain  French  archaeologists  who  recognize  in  a 
number  of  very  ancient  "  chips  "  or  "  flints  "  the  handiwork 
of  apes,  and  in  these  last  the  missing  progenitorial  tribe  (An- 
thropopithecus)  ;  for  although  the  reputed  facts  may  be  true 
—  and  I  am  far  from  denying  that  they  are  true  —  some  fur- 
ther evidence  is  needed  before  they  can  be  confidently  accepted 
as  facts  pure  and  simple.  Nor  can  I  fully  appreciate  the  evi- 
dence which  carries  his  antiquity  back  to  the  earlier  portion 
of  the  Tertiary  epoch.  I  fail  to  find  satisfactory  proof  of 
man's  belongings  having  been  found  in  deposits  very  much  (if 
at  all)  older  than  the  Post-Pliocene,  although  not  unlikely 
some  such  will  yet  be  discovered  of  far  more  ancient  date ;  but 
a  sharp  line  must  be  drawn  between  actualities  and  probabilities. 
In  our  own  country  the  finding  of  the  "  most  ancient  re- 
mains" of  man  has  from  time  to  time  been  reported,  but  I 
am  not  aware  that  in  any  case  these  remains  can  be  proved 
to  be  older  than  the  remains  found  in  different  parts  of  Europe ; 
indeed,  in  most  cases  they  appear  to  be  much  younger.  The 
implements  from  the  "  Trenton  "  gravels  of  the  Delaware,  if 
actually  belonging  there,  would  seem  to  indicate  an  antiquity 
dating  from  the  glacial  epoch',  and  probably  nothing  beyond 
this  can  be  definitely  located.  The  famous  Calaveras  skull, 
from  the  auriferous  gravels  of  California,  is  still  too  much 
involved  in  obscurity  to  permit  of  its  being  used  in  positive 
evidence;  nor  can  much  dependence  be  placed  upon  the  cal- 
culations which  have  been  made  to  determine  the  age  of  the 
man  of  Florida,  which  was  discovered  by  Pourtales  upwards 
of  thirty  years  ago.  I  have  the  pleasure  to  lay  before  you  this 
evening  two  human  vertebra?,  which  I  obtained  two  winters 
ago  from  a  semi-compact  ferruginous  sandstone  on  Sarasota  Bay 
(west  coast  of  Florida),  and  which  our  distinguished  President, 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    423 

Professor  Joseph  Leidy,  has  kindly  determined  for  me  to  be 
probably  the  last  dorsal  and  first  lumbar.  The  vertebrae,  it  will 
be  observed,  are  of  iron,  there  having  been  a  complete  substitu- 
tion of  the  bony  material  by  iron-hydroxide  (limonite),  but 
with  an  absolute  retention  of  the  structure  distinctive  of  bone. 
Many  of  the  other  bones  of  the  skeleton  were  still  associated 
with  these  vertebras,  but  with  limited  facilities  at  my  command 
I  was  only  able  to  procure  these  two  fragments.  How  old  they 
may  be  I  am  not  prepared  to  say;  unfortunately,  their  geo- 
logical position  was  such  as  not  to  permit  of  a  clear  determina- 
tion of  this  point.  Apart  from  the  cast  of  an  unknown  form 
of  coral  found  in  a  neighboring  and  similarly  placed  stratum, 
paleontology  furnishes  no  clue  to  the  solution  of  this  interest- 
ing problem.  But  that  the  age  is  very  great,  the  condition  of 
fossilization  fully  proves;  and  I  think  it  may  be  safely  held 
that  the  vertebrae  in  question  represent  the  most  ancient,  or  very 
nearly  the  most  ancient,  remains  of  man  that  have  thus  far 
been  discovered.  But  beyond  this  it  would  be  dangerous  to 
venture. 

MODIFICATION  OF  INVERTEBRATE  TYPES 

We  have  thus  far  confined  our  attention  exclusively  to  a 
consideration  of  the  higher  groups  of  animals,  the  Vertebrata. 
The  lower  or  invertebrate  animals  present  equally  striking  proofs 
of  modification  and  transformism,  but  the  limited  time  at  my 
command  will  permit  me  to  bring  before  you  only  one  or  two 
special  cases,  drawn  from  the  class  of  Mollusca,  with  which  my 
own  investigations  are  connected.  If  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
holds  true,  it  stands  to  reason  that,  as  in  the  case  of  higher 
animals,  the  existing  fauna  must  be  foreshadowed  in  the  fauna 
of  a  period  immediately  preceding;  this  connection  cannot  gen- 
erally be  established,  owing  probably  to  migrations  and  inter- 
mixtures of  different  faunas,  as  depending  upon  changes  in  the 
physical  condition  of  the  surroundings.  In  the  sheltered  region 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  however,  a  fauna  appears  to  have  been 
developing  in  place  for  probably  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
years,  so  that  the  unequivocal  ancestors  of  many  of  the  living 
forms  can  be  found  in  the  fossil  remains  that  preceded  them. 
I  have  brought  before  you  several  such  forms,  which  it  was  my 


424:  ANGELO   HEILPRIN 

pleasure  to  discover  two  winters  ago  in  the  interior  wilds  of 
the  peninsula  of  Florida. 

One  of  these  you  will  readily  recognize  as  a  wing-shell,  of 
the  type  of  the  large  pink  conch  which  is  found  on  so  many  of 
our  mantel  tops;  I  have  named  the  species,  in  honor  of  the 
distinguished  President  of  this  Academy,  Strombus  Leidyi. 
Alongside  of  it  I  have  placed  the  stromb  most  nearly  related 
to  it  in  the  recent  fauna,  Strombus  accipitrinus,  an  inhabitant 
of  the  Floridian  and  West  Indian  coasts.  In  comparing  the 
two  together  it  will  be  seen  that  the  principal  distinguishing 
characters  lie  in  the  particular  form  of  the  wing,  and  in  the 
tuberculation  of  the  body-whorl  or  chamber,  but  these  differ- 
ences are  so  well  marked  as  to  obscure  at  first  sight  the  relation- 
ship. In  the  majority  of  the  fossil  forms  the  wing  is  more  or 
less  evenly  crescentic  in  outline,  whereas  in  the  recent  species 
it  is  markedly  quadrangular  in  its  upper  moiety,  so  much  so 
that  in  extreme  specimens  the  outline  is  wholly  different  from 
that  seen  in  the  fossil.  But  Strombus  Leidyi  shows  a  pronounced 
tendency  to  vary  in  the  direction  of  8.  accipiirinus,  and  con- 
versely the  latter,  in  this  regard,  seems  to  vary  equally  in  the 
direction  of  the  former,  so  that  we  have  an  almost  perfect 
gradation  established  between  the  extreme  wing-structures  seen 
in  the  one  species  and  the  other,  or  between  the  almost  perfectly 
crescentic  outline  and  that  which  exhibits  the  greatest  quadran- 
gulation.  In  a  similar  manner  the  very  prominent  tubercles 
seen  in  the  recent  species,  which  are  represented  by  elongated 
nodes  in  the  fossil,  are  more  or  less  lost  in  some  individuals, 
although  they  at  all  times  appear  more  prominent  than  in  the 
fossil ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  nodose  ribs  of  the  fossil  frequently 
tend  in  the  direction  of  tuberculation,  thus  again  bridging  the 
interval  between  the  two  species.  We  have  step  by  step  all  the 
intervening  gaps  filled  in  between  the  two  species,  and  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  leave  no  doubt  concerning  the  interrelationship 
of  the  forms  in  question.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  con- 
nection that  no  individuals  of  the  recent  form  occur  in  the 
deposits  containing  the  fossil  species,  which,  as  an  inhabitant 
of  the  seas  immediately  preceding  the  present  one,  may  very 
reasonably  be  looked  upon  as  the  immediate  progenitor  of  the 
stromb  of  the  modern  Gulf. 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    425 

In  the  case  of  the  other  two  forms  which  I  have  brought 
before  you,  the  fossil  crown-conch  (Melongena  subcoronata)  and 
volute  (Valuta  Floridana),  we  have  similar  or  analogous  de- 
tails of  structure  which  unite  them  with  their  living  represen- 
tatives (Melongena  corona,  Voluta  Junonia).  Thus,  the  first- 
named  is  distinguished  from  the  common  crown-conch  of  the 
Gulf  by  several  well-marked  characters,  of  which  the  deficiency 
in  the  number  of  tubercles  to  the  different  whorls,  and  the  hori- 
zontal position  occupied  by  them,  are  especially  apparent.  The 
tubercles  are  also  more  compact,  and  do  not  show  the  foliaceous 
or  scaly  character  which  they  exhibit  in  the  living  species.  But 
while  these  differences  in  structure  readily  serve  to  distinguish 
the  typical  or  most  abundant  forms  of  the  two  species,  they  in 
a  measure  fail  when  some  of  the  less  typical  forms  are  taken 
by  way  of  comparison.  Thus,  a  tendency  toward  increase  or 
duplication  in  the  number  of  tubercles  is  here  and  there  ap- 
parent in  the  fossil  form,  while,  per  contra,  a  tendency  toward 
deficiency  is  not  exactly  rare  in  the  recent  species.  Similarly, 
the  tubercles  or  nodes  of  the  fossil,  which  in  the  typical  forms 
stand  out  nearly  horizontally  from  the  shoulder  of  the  shell,  or 
have  but  a  moderate  inclination,  are  occasionally  more  nearly 
directed  in  the  position  occupied  by  the  tubercles  of  M.  corona; 
conversely,  in  many  of  the  less  typical  forms  of  the  latter  there 
is  a  close  approximation  to  the  condition  found  in  M.  subcoro- 
nata.  In  this  manner  the  two  species  are  inseparably  bound 
together.  As  in  the  case  of  the  stromb,  so  in  this  instance  also, 
no  trace  (or  at  best  but  a  doubtful  one)  of  the  recent  Melongena 
has  been  found  in  the  deposits  containing  the  fossil;  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  have  any  traces  of  the  latter  been  found  in  the 
modern  seas,  so  that  we  may  here  also  plausibly  assume  that 
the  one  form  is  the  forerunner  and  probable  progenitor  of  the 
other. 

The  fossil  volute  differs  slightly  in  outline  from  the  rare 
living  species  of  the  coast,  and  is  further  distinguished  from  it 
by  its  more  acute  apex,  and  the  greater  prominence  of  the  costal 
ornamentation  on  the  apical  portion  of  the  shell.  These  dif- 
ferences, although  not  very  great,  nor  seemingly  of  much  con- 
sequence, are  yet  persistent,  and  as  such  may  be  considered  of 
sufficient  value  to  characterize  a  distinct  species.  But  despite 


426  ANGELO  HEILPRItf 

these  differences  it  is  impossible  not  to  observe  the  very  close 
connection  which  unites  the  two  forms,  and  I  must  admit  that 
on  first  finding  the  fossil  I  almost  unhesitatingly  referred  it  to 
the  recent  species  (Valuta  Junonia),  and  only  after  a  careful 
comparison  of  actual  specimens  of  the  two  species  was  I  able 
to  discern  the  permanent  differences  between  the  forms  in  ques- 
tion. Yet  so  fully  convinced  was  I  of  the  ancestral  relation 
binding  together  the  two  that  I  did  not  hesitate,  even  in  the 
absence  of  all  color-markings,  to  pronounce  the  one  as  the  all- 
probable  progenitor  of  the  other.  Other  specimens  that  have 
since  come  to  me  prove  the  correctness  of  my  surmise,  since 
these  very  clearly  show  the  peculiar  and  beautiful  color-mark- 
ings which  belong  to  Valuta  Junonia. 

ANCESTRAL  FORMS  OF  LIVING  SPECIES 

I  also  place  before  you  two  series  of  conch-shells  of  the  group 
to  which  the  pear-conchs  (Fulgar  and  Sycotypus)  of  the  Xew 
Jersey  coast  belong,  which  the  fossil  fauna  of  Florida  has  per- 
mitted me  to  complete.  They  range  back  in  time  from  the 
present  era  to  the  Miocene,  or  possibly  even  a  still  older,  period, 
and  comprise  each  some  four  or  five  hitherto  described  species 
and  two  or  three  new  forms  which  are  now  for  the  first  time 
brought  to  light.  In  other  words,  they  represent  some  six  or 
seven  distinct  species  of  systematists,  yet  so  closely  do  they 
grade  one  into  the  other  that  it  is  impossible  to  define  the  in- 
dividual limits,  and  they  may  be  properly  considered  to  repre- 
sent one  true  or  varying  type.  Is  not  this  a  remarkable  instance 
of  specific  variation  and  origination,  or  is  it  merely  a  matter 
of  blind  coincidence  ? 

It  might  very  naturally  be  contended  that  in  assuming  the 
Pliocene  fossils  here  represented  to  be  the  ancestral  forms  of 
some  of  the  living  species  the  assumption  is  in  the  nature  of 
a  thing  taken  for  granted,  and  that  no  reasonable  proof  has 
been  presented  indicating  the  necessary  changes  from  the  ex- 
tinct to  the  recent  faunas.  And  were  no  further  evidence  pre- 
sented than  that  which  is  embodied  in  the  three  shells  under 
consideration,  the  objection  taken  would  be  allowed  full  weight. 
But  when  it  can  be  shown,  as  can  very  readily  be  done  in  the 


GEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCES    OF   EVOLUTION    427 

present  instance,  that  the  Pliocene  Floridian  fauna,  which  is 
in  geological  time  the  fauna  immediately  preceding  the  present 
one,  already  embraces  many  of  the  forms  that  are  now  living, 
and  a  host  of  others  that  are  strictly  representative  of,  although 
not  identical  with,  living  forms ;  and  further,  that  some  of  the 
forms,  as  the  strombs,  exhibit  a  remarkable  tendency  to  varia- 
tion or  convergent  modification,  the  objection  loses  all  force, 
since  it  is  distinctly  opposed  to  the  interpretation  of  fact  and 
common  sense.  Manifestly,  paleontology  can.  offer  no  direct 
testimony  to  transmutation  beyond  that  which  a  common-sense 
interpretation  of  facts  will  allow.  But  the  evidence  is  approxi- 
mately of  the  same  nature  as  that  which  permits  us  to  interpret 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  phenomena  about  us  without  our 
being  able  to  perceive  the  workings  of  such'  phenomena. 

DISCOVERIES  IN  TEE.TIAEY  LAKE  BASINS 

I  cannot  conclude  this  chapter  on  molluscan  variation  with- 
out referring  to  the  very  remarkable  discoveries  which  have  been 
made  during  the  last  few  years  in  some  of  the  later  Tertiary 
lake  basins  of  Germany  and  Austria,  bearing  upon  the  modifi- 
cation, through  time,  of  the  characters  of  certain  well-known 
freshwater  genera  of  mollusks.  The  so-called  '  Paludina  beds  ' 
of  Slavonia,  which  date  from  about  the  middle  Tertiary  period, 
will  best  illustrate  my  purpose.  From  these  deposits,  which 
run  continuously  from  what  are  known  as  the  *  lower*  to  the 
'upper  Paludina  beds/  and  whose  physical  development  ap- 
pears to  have  been  practically  unbroken,  Professor  Neumayr, 
of  Vienna,  has  brought  to  light  a  number  of  forms,  eight  or 
more,  of  Paludina,  which  differ  so  materially  from  one  another 
that  to  the  casual  observer  they  appear  like  so  many  distinct 
species ;  and  as  such  have  they  actually  been  described.  But 
it  has  been  shown  that  the  divergences  through  which  the  dif- 
ferent forms  have  been  brought  about  are  clearly  continuous 
and  progressive;  in  other  words,  that  the  modification  is  a 
gradual  one,  leading  up  from  the  oldest  found  form  of  the 
basal  series  to  the  newest  from  the  top  bed.  This  is  one  of 
the  completest  cases  of  transformation  known  in  the  animal 
kingdom." 


XVI 
THE  VAEIETY  AND  METHODS  OF  HIS  WOKK 

Even  before  Mr.  Heilprin's  return  from  Martinique  he  was 
sought  as  a  speaker  by  various  associations.  In  Baltimore  he 
gave  lectures  at  the  Peabody  Institute  and  at  the  Johns  Hop- 
kins Club.  When  such  requests  to  speak  came  to  him  the  thought 
of  compensation  never  influenced  him  in  his  response.  He 
always  maintained  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  scientist  to  give 
of  what  he  knew  regardless  of  pecuniary  reward.  He  had  hardly 
settled  down  to  his  work  at  the  Sheffield  School  in  New  Haven 
when  he  began  to  organize  free  public  lectures  on  scientific  sub- 
jects in  New  Haven,  and  it  was  his  delight  to  learn  that  there 
was  a  demand  for  them.  The  thought  of  what  these  efforts  cost 
him  never  entered  his  mind.  All  his  life  he  gave  freely  of  his 
time  and  advice,  and  not  seldom  of  his  slender  means,  to  those 
who  seemed  to  have  a  claim  on  them.  He  was  a  prodigious 
worker  and  counted  not  the  hours  of  day  and  night  when  a  cer- 
tain task  was  to  be  accomplished.  Yet  he  would  say,  with  appar- 
ent perfect  sincerity,  that  he  had  never  done  a  hard  day's  work 
in  his  life.  He  was  never  hurried,  never  appeared  in  low 
spirits.  When  he  unbent,  he  did  so  completely,  and  he  could 
spend  his  occasional  vacations  in  seeming  idleness  and  search 
of  pure  frolic.  He  was  ready,  at  all  times,  to  do  a  service  to  his 
fellowmen,  and  his  sympathies  embraced  all  animate  natiire. 
He  would  never  hunt  or  kill  an  animal,  and  never  used  fire- 
arms on  any  of  his  expeditions. 

Though  apparently  in  good  health,  he  was  never  robust,  but 
his  rather  slight  frame  seemed  to  be  equal  to  the  physical  exer- 
tions he  so  often  underwent  Probably  the  task  of  re-editing 
Lippincott's  New  Gazetteer  of  ihe  World,  which,  together  with 
his  brother,  he  undertook  in  1901  and  carried  to  its  conclusion 


VAEIETY   AND   METHODS    OF  HIS   WORK    429 

in  1905,  in  addition  to  all  his  other  labors,  involved  too  severe 
a  strain,  as  unquestionably  did  the  experiences  in  Martinique 
which  interrupted  that  task.  He  seems  to  have  had,  even  earlier, 
premonitions  of  an  abrupt  termination  of  his  labors,  though  he 
never  expressed  them  to  his  relatives.  There  was  such  a  sug- 
gestion in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  Mr.  George  F.  Parker,  at  the  time 
U.  S.  Consul  at  Birmingham,  in  which  he  said,  under  date  of 
October  1,  1895 : 

"  At  irregularly  recurring  intervals  your  name  rises  up  before 
me  as  that  of  one  who  is  different  from  the  regular  grade  of 
'  humanity,'  and  oftentimes  do  I  recall  with  pleasure  our 
Atlantic  and  home  associations.  Only  last  week  at  our  home 
in  Summit,  did  we  comment  upon  your  resolve  to  go  to  Ger- 
many to  study  English  as  something  standing  up  in  particu- 
lar relief  against  the  commonplaces  of  the  reformed  or  new 
education. 

My  object  in  writing  just  at  this  time  is  to  revive  and  renew 
thoughts  of  mutual  interest,  taking  advantage  of  a  little  lull 
in  my  scientific  work  and  appointments.  I  have  just  returned 
from  a  trip  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  I  had  guided  a  por- 
tion of  my  geological  class.  It  was  my  first  visit  to  that  section 
of  our  great  country,  although,  as  you  doubtless  recall,  I  had 
before  been  pretty  well  through  Mexico.  My  report  on  Mexican 
Explorations  is  almost  ready  for  publication,  but  probably  be- 
fore putting  it  to  press  I  shall  again  visit  our  sister  republic. 
My  fondness  for  travel  seems  to  increase  with  age,  and  not 
impossibly  I  shall  leave  this  world  on  the  top  of  some  moun- 
tain pinnacle  or  among  Arctic  glaciers.  Mr.  Peary  has  just 
returned  unsuccessful  —  an  issue  which  I  deeply  deplore.  Of 
all  intrepid  men  there  are  few  who  are  his  superiors. 

I  also  contemplate  an  early  visit  to  Europe  —  the  first  since 
my  return  with  you  —  and  possibly  I  may  join  with  it  the 
feature  of  lecturing  in  popular  courses  at  one  or  more  English 
institutions.  This  suggestion  is,  I  believe,  your  own;  at  any 
rate,  I  recall  your  reference  to  possible  lectures  at  the  Mason 
College. 

Seemingly  my  reply  to  your  letter  of  over  a  year's  standing 
never  reached  you,  or  at  least  no  intimation  of  such  a  receipt 


430  AWELO  HEILPRIN 

has  ever  come  back  to  me.    Indeed,  I  do  not  now  even  recall 
what  I  then  wrote. 

Science  and  modern  thought  have  lost  heavily  in  the  death  of 
Huxley  —  a  man  whom  I  place  front  in  the  very  front  rank  of 
intellectuality.  I  do  not  know  his  equal  among  the  living  to- 
day." .  .  . 

Whatever  misgivings  as  to  the  state  of  his  health  Mr.  Heil- 
prin  may  have  had  at  various  times,  his  outward  bearing  gave 
no  evidence  of  it.  He  always  impressed  those  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact  as  a  man  of  extraordinary  vitality.  When  he 
returned  from  his  first  expedition  to  Martinique  a  writer  in  the 
Philadephia  Press  said  of  him : 

"  For  a  man  approaching  fifty  years  of  age  Professor  Heilprin  is 
wonderfully  active.  That  is  the  reason  why  he  got  to  Martinique 
in  May  so  soon  after  the  first  eruption. 

He  does  n't  wait  to  look  after  details  of  personal  affairs  when  a 
scientific  matter  requires  attention.  He  gets  a  barometer,  a  ther- 
mometer and  other  instruments  which  he  shall  need  during  his  ex- 
ploration, and  with  these  and  a  camera  he  is  off. 

It  is  related  by  some  of  his  friends  that  they  were  actually  sur- 
prised when  before  leaving  on  his  first  journey  to  Martinique  he 
bade  them  farewell.  To  lose  sight  of  him  and  then  hear  that  he 
had  been  to  some  faraway  clime  on  an  exploration  tour  was  not  a 
new  thing  to  them,  and  when  he  considered  his  visit  to  Martinique 
sufficiently  full  of  peril  to  warrant  saying  good-bye  they  awoke  to 
full  appreciation  of  the  horrors  going  on  in  that  island. 

Professor  Heilprin  moves  and  thinks  with  great  rapidity.  When 
he  talks  it  is  very  quickly.  Though  the  test  has  never  been  made  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  he  would  make  the  fastest  stenographic  reporter 
ask  for  a  moment  to  breathe.  He  is  not  anxious  to  tell  all  he  knows, 
but  once,  when  he  is  ready  to  talk,  he  can  dictate  an  interview  with 
astonishing  quickness,  never  losing  the  thread  of  the  subject  in 
irrelevant  matter. 

Reporters  who  have  interviewed  him  agree  that  he  is  a  wonder 
among  those  whom  it  is  a  journalist's  lot  to  meet.  .  .  . 

With  all  the  honors  that  have  come  to  him  he  is  a  plain,  unassum- 
ing man,  and  one  who  meets  him  upon  the  street  would  not  gather 
from  any  action  of  his  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  daring  and  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  of  American  scientists." 


.VAEIETY   AND   METHODS    OF  HIS   WORK    431 

When  he  returned  from  British  Guiana  he  was  a  sadly 
changed  and  suffering  man.  He  realized  the  seriousness  of  his 
condition.  Informed  by  a  physician  that  his  heart  was  badly 
affected,  he  remarked  to  his  brother  and  the  present  writer,  with 
a  smile :  "  He  told  me  nothing  new.  I  have  known  that  I  had 
some  heart  trouble  ever  since  I  ascended  Vesuvius,  thirty  years 
ago."  Yet  during  all  the  intervening  period  he  had,  obeying 
the  call  of  duty  as  he  saw  it,  scaled  mountain  after  mountain 
and  undergone  exertions  that  would  have  taxed  the  strongest 
constitution.  Like  the  true  scientist  he  was,  he  was  also  a  brave 
soldier  of  humanity. 

He  bore  the  dreary  months  of  suffering  with  quiet  fortitude, 
deriving,  until  near  the  end,  enjoyment  from  the  reading  of 
novels  for  which  his  busy  life  had  left  him  no  leisure.  He  was, 
in  a  measure,  grateful  for  this  experience,  and  often  expressed 
his  pleasure  to  his  brother  and  his  sisters.  Of  Vanity  Fair  he 
spoke  with  unbounded  admiration.  The  end  came  suddenly. 

A  word  ought  to  be  said  of  his  veneration  for  the  great  men 
in  science  who  were  his  ideals  and,  in  a  sense,  his  models  — 
Humboldt,  Darwin,  and,  among  the  living,  the  distinguished 
Austrian  savant,  Professor  Eduard  Suess.  Dr.  Joseph  Leidy, 
with  whom  he  was  in  close  contact,  he  considered  the  most  many- 
sided  and  accomplished  scientist  in  this  country. 


XVII 

HEILPRIN'S  VIEWS  OK  THE  CORAL  REEF 
PROBLEM 

Angelo  Heilprin's  own  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  explorers 
and  naturalists  of  his  generation  is  secure.  Among  his  many 
contributions  to  science  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  is  his 
discussion  of  the  coral  reef  problem,  in  which  he  upheld  Dar- 
win's subsidence  theory  ( The  Bermuda  Islands).  The  chapter 
deserves  reproduction  in  this  place. 

"  In  view  of  the  peculiar  conditions  attending  coral  growth  — 
the  limitation  of  depth  to  100  or  120  feet  —  the  difficulty  of  ac- 
counting for  the  occurrence  of  coral  structures  in  some  of  the 
deepest  parts  of  the  sea  at  once  becomes  apparent.  It  had,  in- 
deed, been  assumed  that  coral  islands  merely  occupied  the  sum- 
mits of  submerged  volcanoes,  and  that  their  distribution  over 
the  deep-sea  was  simply  an  indication  of  the  existence,  in  the 
region  in  question,  of  an  equal  number  of  buried  volcanic 
peaks  or  mountain  backs.  Recent  researches  have,  however, 
failed  in  the  majority  of  cases  to  detect  the  presence  of  such 
hypothetical  buttresses  rising  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the  sur- 
face, but,  on  the  contrary,  tend  to  show  that  at  least  in  some 
instances  the  actual  coral  portion  of  the  island  descends  of 
itself  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  feet  into  the  ocean. 

The  genius  of  the  late  Mr.  Darwin  has  furnished  a  theoretical 
explanation  of  the  phenomenon  which,  even  if  it  cannot  be 
held  to  be  proved  or  conclusive,  has  at  least  the  merit  of  a 
strong  probability  in  its  favor,  and  of  being  in  consonance 
with  well-determined  geological  facts  and  conditions.  This 
'  subsidence '  theory,  which  until  recently  received  the  almost 
unanimous  support  of  geologists,  is  based  upon  the  evidence  of 
extensive  terrestrial  movements,  and  presupposes  the  existence 


VIEWS    ON    THE    COEAL   REEF   PROBLEM    433 

of  numerous  land-masses  rising  from  the  deepest  water.  Around 
these,  under  favorable  conditions,  reef -building  and  other  corals 
would  flourish  in  abundance,  the  submerged  cone  affording  a 
suitable  base  for  the  development  of  the  coral  animal.  The 
external  margin  of  the  coral  barrier  or  buttress,  which  may  be 
assumed  to  grow  from  a  possible  depth  of  120  feet,  owing  to  the 
invigorating  action  of  the  beating  surf,  and  an  increased  food- 
supply,  would  probably  rise  more  rapidly  than  the  inner  parts, 
whose  development  would  also  in  a  measure  be  checked  by  the 
out-pouring  of  detrital  sediment.  A  shelving  inwardly-slop- 
ing collar  or  bank,  having  a  land-nucleus  in  its  center,  would 
thus  be  produced.  In  the  ring  thus  forming,  whose  outer  mar- 
gin, through  the  breaking  and  heaping  action  of  the  sea,  would 
be  lifted  somewhat  above  the  general  water-level,  we  have  the 
skeleton  of  the  future  atoll.  We  may  now  distinguish  three 
elements  in  its  construction:  the  outer  ring  or  collar  of  coral, 
the  central  nucleus  of  land,  and  the  encircling  body  of  water 
which  separates  the  two. 

THE  ATOLL 

If  at  this  stage  of  its  formation  we  conceive  the  enclosed 
island  to  undergo  a  slow  and  gradual  subsidence  the  following 
phenomena  may  be  assumed  to  present  themselves.  The  outer 
border  of  the  reef  would  slowly  but  steadily  build  itself  up  to  the 
level  of  the  water,  the  growth  of  the  coral  colony  keeping  pace 
with  the  gradual  sinking  of  its  substratum,  provided  this  be  not 
too  rapid.  The  parts  sinking  below  the  line  of  120  feet  would 
die  out,  and  their  future  purpose  would  be  merely  to  afford  a 
base  for  the  super-structure.  The  island  portion,  on  the  con- 
trary, would  sink  deeper  and  deeper,  until  eventually  it  might 
completely  disappear.  We  would  then  have  an  outer  barrier  and 
an  inner  lagoon,  with  probably  one  or  more  communicating 
passages  between  the  latter  and  the  sea  cut  through  the  coral 
growth.  This  is  the  typical  atoll. 

THE  BARRIER  REEF 

When  a  reef  is  separated  by  a  considerable  body  of  water 
from  the  adjoining  land  it  is  termed  a  '  barrier '  reef,  of  which 


434  ANGELO  HEILPRIK 

two  distinct  types,  the  '  encircling J  and  the  '  linear '  barrier 
reef,  are  recognized.  An  encircling  barrier  reef  differs  mainly 
from  an  atoll  in  that  the  assumed  subsidence  has  not  been  suf- 
ficient to  completely  bury  the  enclosed  island,  leaving  con- 
sequently, no  internal  sea,  but  merely  a  separating  channel 
formed  within  the  coral  boundary.  By  further  subsidence,  it 
is  conceived,  the  encircling  reef  would  be  converted  into  an 
atoll.  When  a  coral  boundary  extends  for  a  great  distance  in 
a  more  or  less  linear  direction  it  is  termed  a  linear  reef,  or 
"  barrier  "  reef  proper.  The  great  barrier  reef  off  the  island  of 
"New  Caledonia  extends  in  a  ~N.  W.  and  S.  E.  direction  for  a  dis- 
tance of  upwards  of  400  miles,  and  that  of  the  northeastern 
coast  6f  Australia  has  a  linear  extension,  with  interruptions  of 
more  than  1000  miles.  In  the  case  of  the  latter  the  width  of 
the  intervening  strait  is  in  many  places  between  50  and  60 
miles,  with  a  depth  of  water  reaching  350  feet.  The  reef 
patches,  themselves,  even  in  their  broader  parts,  rarely  exceed 
one  or  two  miles  in  width. 

THE  FRINGING  REEF 

Besides  the  three  forms  of  coral  structure  —  atolls,  encircling 
and  barrier  reefs  —  which  have  been  assumed  to  give  un- 
equivocal evidence  of  subsidence,  there  is  still  a  fourth  type, 
that  of  the  so-called  '  fringing '  reef,  which  has  generally  been 
considered  to  afford  proof  either  of  terrestrial  stability  or  of 
actual  elevation.  These  fringing  reefs  hug  the  immediate  shore 
line,  and  may,  indeed,  be  said  to  represent  the  incipient  stage 
or  starting  point  whence  the  other  forms  of  reefs  were  devel- 
oped ;  by  slow  subsidence  a  fringing  reef  would,  on  the  Darwin- 
ian hypothesis,  be  converted  into  a  barrier  reef.  Fringing  reefs 
are  frequently  continued  as  a  series  of  superimposed  terraces 
above  the  dry  land,  —  an  unequivocal  proof  of  elevation.  They 
rarely,  if  ever,  descend  in  the  water  to  depths  much  exceeding 
120  feet,  and,  as  might  be  naturally  supposed  from  their  man- 
ner of  formation,  are  but  rarely  associated  with  the  other  forms 
of  coral  reefs. 

Applying  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  of  subsidence  to  the 
phenomena  of  coral  structures  generally,  we  may  deduce  the 


VIEWS    ON    THE    CORAL   REEF   PROBLEM    435 

following:  A  region  of  atolls,  encircling  and  barrier  reefs  is 
primarily  a  region  of  subsidence  —  of  subsidence  now  actually 
taking  place,  or  only  recently  completed;  per  contra,  regions 
characterized  by  fringing  reefs  are  regions  either  of  stability  or 
of  slow  and  gradual  upheaval.  The  greatest  area  of  indicated 
subsidence  is  that  of  the  Central  Pacific,  which  has  been  as- 
sumed to  compass  a  tract  measuring  6000  miles  in  length  and 
2000  miles  in  greatest  width.  Commencing  at  the  Paumotu 
group,  or  the  Low  Archipelago  on  the  south-east,  and  extend- 
ing to  the  Carolines  on  the  north-west,  the  coral  structures  dot 
at  intervals  the  surface  of  the  sea  for  a  linear  distance  of  100 
degrees  of  longitude,  embracing  in  this  space  several  hundred 
true  islands,  besides  numerous  reefs  of  one  form  or  another. 
In  the  Paumotu  group  alone  there  are,  according  to  Dana,  not 
less  than  80  atolls. 


THE  THEORY  OP  SIMPLE  CORAL  UPGROWTH 

The  existence  of  such  an  enormous  subsidence  area  as  is  in- 
volved in  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  is  necessarily  difficult  to 
realize,  and,  indeed,  numerous  apparently  valid  objections  seem 
to  interpose  themselves  to  its  full  acceptance.  It  has  been 
shown  that  within,  or  immediately  on  the  border  of,  the  sup- 
posed subsiding  area  there  occur  local  tracts  where  fringing 
reefs  take  the  place  of  atolls,  and,  again,  others  where  raised 
coral  patches  or  terraces  clearly  indicate  elevation.  The  coral 
on  some  of  the  Hervey  and  Friendly  islands  is  stated  to  oc- 
cur at  a  height  of  300  feet  above  sea-level;  on  the  island  of 
Guan,  one  of  the  Ladrones,  according  to  Quoy  and  Gaymard, 
the  coral  rock  is  in  places  fully  600  feet  above  the  sea.  In 
some  island  groups,  as  Hawai,  Feejee,  etc.,  coral  structures  ap- 
parently indicative  of  both  depression  and  elevation  occur 
interassociated  among  the  different  islands  constituting  those 
groups,  and  the  same  feature  —  the  interassociation  of  fringing 
and  barrier  reefs  with  atolls  —  has  been  observed  by  Semper 
in  the  Pelew  Archipelago  (West  Pacific).  This  condition,  to- 
gether with  various  concomitant  difficulties  that  lie  in  the  way 
of  the  Darwinian  hypothesis,  has  led  to  the  rejection  by  many 
naturalists  —  Semper,  Guppy,  A.  Agassiz,  Murray,  Geikie,  and 


436  ANGELO   HEILPRI3T 

others  —  of  the  subsidence-theory,  and  to  the  substitution  for 
it  of  a  theory  of  simple  coral  upgrowth,  with  structural  modi- 
fications as  depending  principally  upon  currental  action  and 
food-supply. 

This  theory,  like  its  alternative,  presupposes  as  a  first  neces- 
sary condition  of  coral  growth  the  existence  of  a  submarine 
basement  within  the  zone  of  coral  life  (1—20  fathoms).  Upon 
this,  which  may  be  the  buried  slope  or  the  summit  of  a  volcano, 
or  merely  a  bank,  the  coral  animal  develops  and  builds  to  the 
surface.  Where  such  a  sub-structure  does  not  immediately 
exist,  or  rather  does  not  extend  to  the  zone  within  which  reef 
corals  are  limited,  it  is  claimed  that  suitable  foundations  may 
be  obtained  through  the  building  up  of  submarine  volcanoes  by 
the  deposition  on  their  summits  of  organic  and  other  sediments. 
This  would  explain  the  apparent  anomaly  of  coral  structures 
rising  from  depths  vastly  exceeding  the  lower  boundaries  of 
coral  growth,  a  condition  which  to  Mr.  Darwin  necessitated 
the  assumption  of  subsidence.  It  is  well  known  that  through- 
out the  greater  mass  of  the  ocean  there  is  a  constant  rain  or 
down-pouring  of  organic  particles  in  the  form  of  the  calcareous 
and  siliceous  tests  of  Foraminifera,  pteropods,  diatoms,  etc., 
much  of  which  goes  to  form  the  vast  accumulation  of  white 
mud  (Atlantic  or  Globigerina  ooze)  which  covers  the  greater 
part  of  the  oceanic  floor.  Manifestly,  such  an  accumulation 
must  eventually  acquire  great  thickness.  It  is  more  than 
doubtful,  however,  if  any  very  considerable  thickness  of  such 
deposit  has  been  built  up  during  the  existing  period  of  coral 
growth,  or  that  an  accumulation  of  this  kind  has  materially 
aided  in  building  up  the  sub-coral  buttresses  of  the  deeper 
seas.  The  investigations  of  Mr.  Murray,  deduced  from  data 
obtained  by  the  '  Challenger,'  indicate  that  a  column  of 
oceanic  water  of  600  feet  depth,  with  a  transverse  area  of  one 
square  mile,  contains  some  16  tons  of  suspended  organic  par- 
ticles ;  these,  if  precipitated  to  the  floor  of  the  sea,  would  make 
a  deposit  1/10000  inch  in  thickness.  It  has  thus  far  been  im- 
possible to  determine  the  duration  of  life  of  the  organisms 
furnishing  the  organic  particles,  mainly  Foraminifera,  and 
consequently  there  is  no  direct  way  of  ascertaining  in  what 
period  the  tests  of  a  given  column  of  water  are  replenished. 


VIEWS    ON    THE    COKAL   REEF   PROBLEM    437 

But  manifestly,  there  can  be  no  more  rapid  accumulation  of 
the  calcareous  ooze  than  there  is  lime-carbonate  suspended  in 
the  sea;  and  again,  the  quantity  of  lime-carbonate  so  sus- 
pended must  depend  upon  the  quantity  of  the  formative  ma- 
terial contained  in  the  sea  —  the  quantity  of  lime  carried  in 
by  the  rivers,  and  any  residual  or  surplus  quantity  that  might 
be  already  existing.  Now,  it  would  seem  from  careful  obser- 
vation made  on  many  of  the  most  important  rivers  of  the 
globe  that  the  quantity  of  lime  carried  out  by  them  into  the 
sea  annually  is  about  one-sixth  that  of  their  suspended  sedi- 
ment, which  would  cover  the  sea-bottom,  if  precipitated  at  a 
rate  proportional  to  that  of  the  removal  of  continental  sedi- 
ment—  one  foot  in  3000  years  —  to  a  depth  of  about  1/4500 
inch.  Assuming  that  one-half  of  this  amount  is  used  by  the 
Fcraminifera  for  the  construction  of  their  shells,  the  rest  being 
taken  up  by  the  mollusks,  corals,  etc.,  then  the  foraminiferal 
accumulation  from  this  source  would  be  the  1/9000  part  of  an 
inch  annually,  or  very  nearly  the  amount  that  would  accumu- 
late from  the  droppings  contained  in  the  600-foot  column  of 
water,  as  deduced  from  Mr.  Murray's  determination.  At  this 
extremely  slow  rate  of  accumulation,  it  would  require  a  period 
of  100,000  years  to  build  up  the  thickness  of  a  single  foot! 
Naturally  along  coast-lines,  where  the  molluscous  animals 
largely  contribute  to  the  general  growing  mass,  and  where  inor- 
ganic sedimentation  is  unusually  brisk,  the  process  of  upgrowth 
may  be  comparatively  rapid,  especially  in  the  trend  of  powerful 
oceanic  currents.  A  condition  of  this  kind  seems  to  obtain 
along  the  Floridian  coast,  and  it  is  not  unlikely,  as  has  been 
suggested  by  A.  Agassiz,  that  the  Florida  banks  have  been 
built  up  largely  in  the  manner  above  described.  But  the  con- 
ditions become  very  different  when  the  oceanic  abyss,  such 
as  the  central  Pacific,  is  substituted  for  a  comparatively  shallow 
coast-line.  Indeed,  even  in  the  case  of  the  Floridian  banks  it 
is  doubtful  if  most  of  their  upgrowth  is  not  really  due  to 
bodily  uplift  rather  than  to  organic  and  inorganic  accumula- 
tion, as  we  have  most  conclusive  evidence  of  an  uplift  in  the 
peninsula  of  Florida  in  a  period  at  least  as  late  as  the  Plio- 
cene. Nor  are  evidences  of  a  more  recent  contrary  movement 
wanting  in  the  same  region. 


438  ASTGELO  HEILPRIBT 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  THEORY  OF  SLOW  ACCUMULATION 

It  will,  however,  naturally  be  urged  against  this  assumption 
of  slow  accumulation  that  the  quantity  of  the  salts  of  lime 
already  contained  by  the  sea  is  vastly  in  excess  of  that  which 
is  annually  thrown  in  by  the  rivers,  and  that,  therefore,  the 
amount  of  formative  material  on  hand  is  amply  sufficient  to 
meet  all  the  exigencies  of  a  rapid  growth.  The  quantity  of 
calcium  actually  contained  in  every  cubic  mile  of  sea-water  is 
estimated  to  be  nearly  2,000,000  tons,  while  that  held  by  an 
equal  volume  of  river-water  is  less  than  150,000  tons.  At  the 
rate  of  the  present  carrying  capacity  of  rivers  it  is  calculated 
that  it  would  require  680,000  years  to  pour  into  the  ocean  an 
amount  of  calcium  equal  to  that  which  is  now  held  by  it  in 
solution.  The  question  here  naturally  presents  itself:  To 
what  extent  is  this  surplus  quantity  of  lime  drawn  upon  by  the 
oceanic  organisms  for  the  construction  of  their  hard  parts  or 
skeletons?  It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible  to  give  a 
direct  answer  to  this  question,  but  the  following  considerations 
suggest  themselves.  As  far  as  our  knowledge  permits  us  to 
pass  beyond  the  region  of  facts,  we  can  but  assume  that  the 
salinity  of  the  sea  is  progressive  or  cumulative,  and  not  the 
reverse,  and  that  the  saline  constituents  of  ocean  water  are 
primarily  the  products  of  destruction  arising  from  the  wear 
and  tear  of  the  land-surface.  There  seems  to  be  no  good  rea- 
son for  supposing  that  the  quantity  of  salts  in  the  sea,  and  of 
lime  especially,  was  ever  much  in  excess  of  what  it  is  to-day, 
unless  it  was  near  the  beginning  of  geological  time ;  on  the  con- 
trary, there  are  some  grounds  for  concluding  that  this  quantity 
may  have  been  less,  and  even  considerably  less.  If  this  con- 
ception is  true,  it  is  manifest  that,  as  far  as  organic  consump- 
tion of  lime  is  concerned,  there  is  either  existing  stability  in 
the  sea,  or  that  the  different  shell-bearing  animals  remove  less 
of  the  formative  material  for  their  own  purposes  than  the  sea 
receives  from  continental  erosion.  In  the  calculation  before 
made  we  have  used  as  a  basis  merely  the  quantity  of  lime-car- 
bonate carried  out  in  solution  by  rivers;  to  this  must  neces- 
sarily be  added  that  which  is  derived  directly  by  the  sea 


VIEWS    ON    THE    COEAL   KEEF   PROBLEM    439 

through  its  own  breakages  —  the  wear  of  the  coast-line  —  and 
the  other  salts  of  lime  of  which  no  account  has  been  taken.  If 
we  double  the  quantity  that  has  been  assumed  we  will  proba- 
bly more  than  cover  the  available  supply;  a  rate  of  accumula- 
tion, therefore,  of  one  foot  in  50,000  years  would  be  the  result. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  such  a  slow  accumulation  is  hardly 
compatible  with  any  notion  of  growth  from  great  depths,  and 
that  it  is  entirely  opposed  to  the  view  which  holds  to  the  for- 
mation of  giant  banks  leading  up  to  the  zone  of  coral  life. 

THEOBIES  OF  ALEXANDER  AGASSIZ 

But  in  what,  it  might  be  asked,  lies  the  direct  evidence  that 
giant  banks  are  being  built  up  through  organic  accumulations? 
Is  it  merely  the  finding  of  foraminiferal  and  pteropod  ooze  on 
projecting  knobs  of  the  ocean  bottom?  This  is  not  a  new  con- 
dition, and  it  is  practically  repeated  in  the  Globigerina  ooze 
which  covers  much  of  the  oceanic  floor.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
remarkable  if  such  deposits  did  not  exist,  but  their  presence 
gives  no  answer  to  the  possibility  of  building  up  giant  banks 
under  the  conditions  which  would  be  considered  necessary  for 
the  making  of  coral  islands.  No  one  has  more  carefully  studied, 
or  is  better  acquainted  with,  the  Florida  reefs  than  Alexander 
Agassiz,  and  perhaps  no  class  of  reefs  has  been  more  frequently 
appealed  to  in  the  recent  discussion  of  coral  structures  than 
those  examined  by  this  authority.  We  are  informed  by  Mr. 
Agassiz  that  these  reefs  are  merely  organic  growths  and  ac- 
cumulations, whose  present  positions,  whether  of  horizontal  or 
vertical  distribution,  have  practically  no  connection  with  re- 
cent movements  either  of  elevation  or  depression.  '  There  is 
practically  no  evidence  that  the  Florida  reef,  or  any  part  of  the 
southern  peninsula  of  Florida  which  has  been  formed  by  corals, 
owes  its  existence  to  the  effect  of  elevation ;  or  that  the  atolls  of 
this  district,  such  as  those  of  the  Marquesas  or  of  the  great 
Alacran  Reef,  owe  their  peculiar  structure  to  subsidence.'  On 
what  evidence,  it  might  be  asked,  rest  these  assertions  ?  It  may 
not  be  easy  to  prove  subsidence  in  the  case  of  the  Marquesas 
and  the  Alacran  Reef,  but  I  believe  it  would  be  equally  diffi- 
cult to  prove  the  reverse  proposition  —  ».  e.,  that  there  has  been 


440  ANGELO   HEILPKIN 

no  subsidence.  As  far  as  the  Florida  reefs  themselves  are  con- 
cerned, I  believe  the  evidence  is  all  but  conclusive  that  they  owe 
much,  if  not  most,  of  their  existence  to  uplift,  and  to  uplift 
within  a  recent  geological  period.  My  own  researches  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  peninsula  have  demonstrated  the  existence  of 
Pliocene  deposits  in  vast  horizontal,  or  nearly  horizontal,  beds  as 
far  south  as  the  Caloosahatchie,  and  there  can  be  no  question 
that  these  deposits,  which  rise  to  10  or  15  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  sea,  are  continued  for  some  distance  still  further  to  the 
south.  The  same  deposits,  moreover,  are  capped  by  deposits  of 
Post-Pliocene  age,  proving  that  an  uplift  took  place  in  this 
region  as  late  as  the  Post-Pliocene  period.  That  this  uplift 
should  not  have  affected  the  apex  of  the  peninsula,  and  even  the 
reefs  beyond,  seems  scarcely  credible.  From  what  we  now  know 
of  the  structure  of  the  Floridian  peninsula  it  is  clear  that  this 
portion  of  the  North  American  continent  represents  a  compara- 
tively old  chapter  in  geological  history,  and  that  it  has  passed 
through  much  the  same  phases  of  construction  as  the  border 
area  of  the  Eastern  and  Southern  United  States.  Its  periods  of 
elevation  and  depression,  extending  back  through  the  greater 
portion  of  the  Tertiary  epoch,  were  largely  coincident  with  those 
of  the  regions  above  indicated,  and  the  movements  were  with 
little  doubt  long  sustained,  and  certainly  affected  large  areas  at  a 
time.  There  is  nothing,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  to  indicate  that 
these  movements  were  confined  to  what  is  now  dry  land;  the 
more  natural  conclusion  is  that  the  axial  or  plateau  uplift  ex- 
tended much  beyond  the  limits  of  the  present  peninsula,  and 
as  well  southward  as  westward  or  eastward.  The  similarity  in 
the  geological  structure  of  Yucatan,  as  it  appears  from  our  pres- 
ent knowledge,  lends  weight  to  the  supposition  that  the  area 
thus  affected  by  movements  was  perhaps  continuous  completely 
across  the  Gulf. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  SUBSIDENCE  THEORY 

In  explanation  of  the  distinctive  form  of  atolls  —  the  ring  of 
coral  with  its  inclosed  lagoon  —  it  is  claimed  by  the  opponents 
of  the  subsidence  theory  that  coral  plantations  building  up 
from  submarine  banks  will  grow  more  rapidly  on  their  outer 


VIEWS    ON    THE    COKAL   BEEF   PKOBLEM    441 

margins,  where  the  food  supply  is  the  greatest,  and  where, 
as  compared  with  the  inner  parts  of  the  mass,  there  is  less 
obstructive  sediment,  and  thus  an  exterior  rim  or  eleva- 
tion would  be  formed.  The  differentiation  of  the  inner  and 
outer  parts,  it  is  assumed,  would  be  further  intensified  by  the 
removal  in  solution  of  the  lime-carbonate  from  the  less  active 
interior  portion  —  the  region  of  coral  decay  and  detrital  accu- 
mulation —  and  the  formation  there  of  a  shallow  pan  of  water  or 
lagoon.  That  the  distinctive  features  of  an  atoll  may  be  brought 
about  somewhat  in  the  manner  here  described  can  scarcely 
be  doubted;  indeed,  the  supplemental  atolls  of  diminutive  size 
that  so  frequently  accompany  the  large  reefs,  the  serpula-reefs 
of  the  Bermudas  for  example,  convincingly  prove  the  possi- 
bility of  ring  structure  without  subsidence.  But  in  instances 
of  this  kind  the  ring  is  merely  a  narrow  projection,  barely 
rising  above  the  shallow  central  depression,  and  is  due  prob- 
ably more  to  the  action  of  a  beating  surf  than  to  any  other 
cause.  In  the  case  of  a  true  atoll  with  a  large  lagoon  the  con- 
ditions are  very  different,  and  it  seems  impossible  to  explain 
the  central  depression,  often  20,  30,  and  40  fathoms,  or  even 
more,  in  depth,  on  the  assumption  of  internal  solution,  aided 
by  external  acceleration  as  dependent  upon  an  increased  food 
supply.  It  does  not  appear  exactly  clear  why  solution  should 
progress  more  rapidly  within  the  lagoon  than  over  the  deeper 
slopes  of  the  coral  buttress,  where  the  protective  power  of  the 
living  animal  is  also  wanting;  nor  is  it  at  all  likely  that  such 
solution  as  actually  does  take  place  within  the  lagoon  more 
than  compensates  for  the  accretion  of  sedimentary  material 
derived  from  the  destruction  of  the  surrounding  shores,  or  for 
the  organic  accumulation  that  is  continuously  forming  along 
the  floor  of  the  lagoon. 

ACCUMULATION  AS  A  PKEVAILING  CONDITION 

My  examination  of  the  Bermudas  convinces  me  that,  as  far 
as  those  islands  are  concerned,  the  quantity  of  lime  removed 
from  the  interior  waters  is  far  less  than  that  which  is  added 
through  sedimentation  and  organic  development.  The  bot- 
tom is  everywhere  covered  with  fine  debris,  and  the  even  floor 


442  ANGELO  HEILPKIX 

indicates  that  this  debris  is  of  considerable  thickness.  One 
has  but  to  gaze  upon  the  undercut  and  crumbling  ledges  of 
Harrington  Sound  and  the  cliffs  facing  the  lagoon  to  be  con- 
vinced that  accumulation,  and  not  solution,  is  the  prevailing 
condition  in  these  waters.  Yet  we  have  here  a  depth  of  water 
of  from  50  to  80  feet.  I  am,  indeed,  far  from  convinced  that 
the  organic  accumulation  which  is  here  taking  place  by  actual 
growth  does  not  far  surpass  the  material  removed  through  solu- 
tion. The  tests,  both  perfect  and  fragmentary,  of  Foraminifera 
are  abundant  everywhere,  but  in  addition  to  material  derived 
from  this  source,  there  exist  large  areas  which  are  seemingly 
well  covered  with  the  shells  of  molluscous  animals  (Chama, 
Area,  Avicula,  etc.)  and  sea-urchins  (Toxopneustes  variegatus). 
The  latter,  with  Area  Nooe,  are  especially  abundant.  The  coral 
growth  of  Castle  Harbor,  and  not  less  the  insular  patches  of 
millepore,  etc.,  in  the  big  lagoon,  speak  with  sufficient  emphasis 
on  this  point  There  can  be  no  doubt,  too,  that  some  of  the 
basins  and  channels  have  been  recently  shallowing  through  silt- 
ing, but  of  course  this  may  have  been  brought  about  through  a 
mere  transference  of  material  from  one  point  to  another.  The 
depth  of  water  in  the  Flatts  Inlet,  which  receives  a  strong  tidal 
current  from  the  outer  lagoon  and  from  Harrington  Sound,  is 
much  less  to-day  than  it  was  in  the  early  part  of  the  century, 
when  the  Inlet  furnished  a  safe  anchorage  to  vessels  of  large 
draught. 

Mr.  Bourne  finds  similar  conditions  to  exist  in  the  lagoons 
of  the  Diego  Garcia  reef,  and  he  entirely  rejects  the  theory 
that  lagoons  could  have  been  primarily  formed  through  solu- 
tion. He  shows  that  nowhere  has  the  lagoon  deepened  since  the 
time  when  Capt.  Moresby  surveyed  the  region  in  1837,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  evidences  of  shoaling  to  the  extent  of  a  full 
fathom  on  the  south  side  are  not  wanting.  It  is  also  pointed 
out  that  the  depth  of  water  in  the  lagoons  of  the  various 
islands  which  are  associated  with  Diego  Garcia  is  not  propor- 
tional to  the  size  of  the  lagoon,  as  we  should  naturally  expect 
to  find  it  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  solution.  This  is  also 
true  of  the  Bermudian  waters,  although  their  relations  some- 
what differ  from  those  of  the  Chagos  Banks.  Thus,  the  depth' 
of  water  in  the  comparatively  small  Harrington  Sound  is 


VIEWS    OX    THE    COKAL   REEF   PROBLEM    443 

measurably  greater  than  that  of  the  outer  water,  the  big  lagoon ; 
it  is  also  much  greater  than  we  find  it  in  the  superficially  more 
extensive  Castle  Harboi . 


THE  SOLVENT  POWEE  OF  SEA-WATEE 

Experiments  made  to  determine  the  solvent  power  of  sea- 
water  show  that  the  process  of  solution  is  a  very  slow  one.  It 
appears  indeed  incredible,  in  the  face  of  such  energetic  solution 
as  is  presumed  to  exist  in  the  upper  waters  of  the  ocean,  that 
any  extensive  organic  accumulation  could  ever  take  place  over 
the  floor  of  the  sea,  where  the  solvent  power  of  the  water  is 
materially  increased  through  pressure,  and  still  less  possible 
that  any  considerable  foundation  could  be  built  up  from  it,  or 
from  the  summit  of  only  a  moderately  depressed  mountain 
peak.  The  fact  that  in  so  large  a  number  of  atolls  the  lagoons 
are  either  entirely  wanting,  or  are  reduced  to  mere  shallow 
pans  of  water,  also  militates  against  the  hypothesis  of  solution. 

With  regard  to  the  formation  of  the  primary  ring  through 
accelerated  growth  on  the  outer  margin,  as  depending  upon  an 
increased  food-supply,  it  may  be  reasonably  doubted  if  this 
condition  could  obtain  in  the  open  ocean  away  from  a  land  area, 
inasmuch  as  by  far  the  greater  quantity  of  the  food-supply 
would  be  given  to  the  polyps  as  a  direct  down-pouring  from 
above,  and  independently,  or  nearly  so,  of  any  currental  action. 
It  is  true  that  the  outer  polyps  or  colonies  would  be  favored 
by  having  an  extra  supply  on  their  exposed  borders,  but  this 
would  tend  probably  in  the  majority  of  cases  only  to  lateral 
extension,  or  to  lateral  extension  combined  with  upward  growth 
—  in  other  words,  to  a  simple  turbinated  growth  with  a 
nearly  flat  top.  It  is  true  that  in  a  few  instances,  as  has  been 
noted  by  Semper  and  Darwin,  colonies  of  Porites,  having  a 
turbinated  form,  exhibit  a  raised  border  or  lip,  but  it  is  equally 
true  that  in  by  far  the  greater  number  of  cases  the  individual 
larger  colonies  assume  either  a  clavate  or  a  hemispherical  form, 
the  latter  condition  being  also  distinctive  of  the  giant  brain- 
corals.  Mr.  Bourne,  from  his  researches  on  the  Diego  Garcia 
reef,  also  dismisses  the  notion  that  food-conveying  currents  are 
especially  instrumental  in  shaping  the  reefs,  and  he  points 


444  A^TGELO   HEILPEIX 

out  that  frequently  the  most  elevated  side  of  an  atoll  is  turned 
away  from  such  currents,  and,  again,  that  a  large  number  of 
coral  islands  are  placed  entirely  to  one  side,  or  out  of  the  path, 
of  the  prevailing  ocean  current. 

THE  TEUE  ENERGY  OF  COEAL  GROWTH 

But  even  granting  that  through  some  method  of  accelerated 
growth  on  the  exterior  an  elevated  bounding  ring  should  be 
formed,  the  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  existence  of  the 
deep  lagoon  would  in  no  wise  be  lessened;  for,  in  the  first 
place,  no  such  ring  would  be  formed  below  the  line  of  coral 
growth,  and  we  should  consequently  be  compelled  to  assume 
as  antecedent  to  its  formation  the  complete  upward  growth  or 
elevation  of  the  submerged  bank  to  the  true  coral  zone,  or  to 
a  greatest  possible  depth  beneath  the  surface  of  100  or  120 
feet.  Manifestly,  under  such  conditions  there  could  be  no 
deep  depression  corresponding  to  lagoons  of  200  or  300  feet 
depth,  unless  these  were  subsequently  formed  by  means  other 
than  solution.  Furthermore,  it  appears  that  the  true  energy 
of  coral  growth  is  concentrated  in  the  first  zone  of  some  fifty 
or  sixty  feet,  which  would  practically  mark  the  depth  at  which 
a  bounding  rim  of  accelerated  growth  would  be  formed,  and 
also  fix  the  depth  of  the  lagoons.  But  as  has  already  been 
seen,  the  depth  of  nearly  all  extensive  lagoons  is  very  much 
greater,  in  some  cases  six  times  as  great,  or  more. 

DARWIN'S  THEORY  OF  SUBSIDENCE 

The  difficulty  in  the  premises  disappears  almost  entirely 'if 
we  accept  Mr.  Darwin's  hypothesis  of  subsidence,  for  here  the 
accelerated  outer  growth  is  assumed  to  depend  no  less  upon 
interior  retardation  (as  the  result  of  the  accumulation  of  in- 
jurious sediment),  as  upon  an  actual  increase  in  the  quantity 
of  the  food-supply.  The  depth  and  size  of  the  lagoon  will 
then  depend  upon  the  extent  of  land  that  has  undergone  sub- 
sidence, and  upon  the  measure  of  its  submergence.  Where 
the  descent  is  very  gradual  the  upward  development  of  the 
coral  structures  may  by  overgrowth  completely  close  out  the 
lagoon ;  where,  on  the  other  hand,  the  descent  is  unusually  rapid, 


VIEWS    OX    THE    COEAL   REEF   PROBLEM    445 

more  rapid  than  the  compensating  upward  growth  of  the  corals, 
a  "  drowned  "  atoll  may  be  the  result.  The  great  Chagos  Bank, 
which  is  situated  some  700  miles  to  the  south  of  the  Maldives 
and  has  a  length  of  about  90  miles  with  a  greatest  width  of 
70  miles,  has  generally  been  assumed  to  be  only  a  completely 
submerged  or  drowned  atoll.  If  raised  to  the  surface  it  would 
be  in  the  form  of  a  true  atoll,  with  a  depth  of  water  in  the 
lagoon  of  40-50  fathoms.  At  the  present  time  the  bounding 
reef  is  covered  with  water  of  from  4  to  10  fathoms  depth.  The 
Bermuda  Islands  have  also  been  instanced  as  an  example  of  a 
partially  drowned  atoll,  but,  as  has  been  shown  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter,  there  is  nothing  in  the  present  land-mass  to  indi- 
cate that  it  bears  any  direct  relatipn  to  an  atoll  ring. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  THEORY  CONSIDERED 

An  objection  that  has  been  frequently  urged  against  the  sub- 
sidence theory,  and  one  that  has  been  more  particularly  in- 
sisted upon  by  Guppy  as  the  result  of  extended  observations 
made  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  is  that  where  fringing  reefs  are 
exposed  they  usually  exhibit  only  a  moderate  thickness  of 
true  coral-rock,  the  basement  or  sub-structure  being  mainly 
of  a  pelagic  character  —  that  is,  built  up  of  the  remains  of 
pelagic  animals  (Foraminifera,  etc.).  Hence,  it  is  argued  that 
in  the  so-called  subsidence  reefs  —  atolls  and  barrier-reefs,  — 
the  actual  thickness  of  coral  is  very  limited,  or  barely  more  than 
that  which  would  fall  within  the  regular  zone  of  coral  growth. 
The  few  observations  that  have  been  made  on  this  point,  can- 
not be  considered  to  throw  much  light  upon  the  question,  the 
more  especially  as  the  evidence  obtained  is  far  from  corrobora- 
tive. Furthermore,  it  is  just  in  such  elevated  reefs  that  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Darwinian  theory  we  should  frequently  look 
for  a,  thin  deposit  of  coral-rock,  for  if  there  has  been  eleva- 
tion instead  of  subsidence  the  thickness  must  necessarily  be 
slight;  when,  however,  subsidence  had  preceded  elevation  the 
result,  would  be  the  opposite.  No  weight  should  be  attached  to 
the  oft-repeated  assertion  that  in  the  older  geological  forma- 
tions there  are  no  really  massive  reef-structures.  This  asser- 
tion is  entirely  opposed  to  the  facts,  to  cite  but  a  single  instance 


446  AXGELO   HEILPRIST 

presented  by  the  Dolomites  of  the  Tyrol,  the  reef-structure  of 
which  has  been  so  ably  worked  out  by  Mojsisovics  and  others. 
Furthermore,  it  is  practically  impossible  in  the  case  of  a  large 
number  of  the  altered  limestones  to  state  whether  they  are  of 
coral  origin  or  not. 

One  objection  against  the  subsidence  theory  has  still  to  be 
considered.  It  is  the  association  of  fringing  reefs  with  atolls. 
This  commingling  of  two  distinct  types  of  structure,  implying 
movements  in  opposite  directions,  has  been  much  commented 
upon,  and  placed  under  strong  emphasis  by  the  adherents  of 
the  new  views  regarding  the  formation  of  coral  islands.  But 
the  occurrence  appears  to  be  entirely  without  significance.  An 
alternate  movement  of  elevation  and  subsidence  is  no  more 
strange  over  an  oceanic  area  than  it  is  on  the  continental 
borders.  Yet  we  have  here  almost  everywhere  evidences  of  a 
differential  movement,  and  no  geologist  has  for  a  moment  ex- 
pressed surprise  at  the  manifestation.  What  then  is  the  anom- 
aly of  the  occurrence  of  such  movements  in  a  coralline  sea? 
How  is  the  conception  of  subsidence  antagonized  by  the  facts 
of  elevation?  If  we  conceive  of  an  atoll,  with  a  deep  lagoon, 
once  having  been  formed  through  subsidence,  what  is  to  pre- 
vent a  succeeding  elevation  from  lifting  parts  of  this  atoll,  or 
for  that  matter,  the  entire  atoll-ring,  above  the  water?  We 
could  still  have  the  lagoon  of  subsidence  retained,  and  yet  as  a 
last  record  of  movement  we  would  have  merely  the  evidence 
of  elevation.  Because  a  certain  structure  is  formed  through 
subsidence  it  does  not  follow  that  this  subsidence  should  not 
be  followed  by  elevation.  This  is  but  the  order  of  things  we 
find  everywhere  expressed  in  the  history  of  continental  masses. 
Indeed  it  would  be  but  natural  to  look  for  local  oscillations  in 
regions  of  extensive  movement  Mr.  Bourne  lays  great  stress 
upon  the  evidences  of  elevation  (of  a  few  feet)  which  are  pre- 
sented by  Diego  Garcia,  and  claims  them  to  be  conclusive 
against  '  the  idea  of  any  subsidence  being  in  progress,  as  Mr. 
Darwin  fancied  to  be  the  case  in  the  Keeling  atoll.'  I  con- 
fess that  I  can  find  nothing  in  this  evidence  which  would  pre- 
clude an  assumption  of  subsidence  sufficiently  recent  to  have 
produced  the  characteristic  atoll  form.  We  have  in  the  elevated 
beach-rock  of  the  Bermudas  unequivocal  evidences  of  elevation, 


VIEWS    GIST    THE    CORAL   EEEF   PROBLEM    447 

but  equally  conclusive  are  the  evidences  of  the  subsidence 
which  followed  this  elevation.  In  other  words  we  have  here 
the  conditions  of  Diego  Garcia  simply  reversed.  Again,  in  re- 
gions where,  as  in  that  represented  by  the  great  Chagos  Bank, 
it  might  be  assumed  that  '  drowned '  atolls  have  been  formed 
as  the  result  of  too  rapid  subsidence,  a  change  of  movement 
would  be  all  but  certain  to  develop  reefs  of  elevation  in  combi- 
nation with  those  which  are  assumed  to  bear  in  their  structure 
the  evidences  of  subsidence.  In  other  words,  there  would  be  an 
interassociation  in  the  same  archipelago  of  both  fringing  reefs 
and  atolls,  for  it  can  scarcely  be  conceived  that  all  the  project- 
ing land-masses  of  the  archipelago  could,  at  the  time  when 
movements  of  one  kind  or  another  set  in,  have  been  equally 
elevated  above,  or  depressed  beneath,  the  surface  of  the  water. 
Hence,  unequal  developments  must  have  taken  place. 

VIEWS  OF  MODERN  PHYSICISTS  AND  GEOLOGISTS 

Such  are  the  principal  circumstances  connected  with  the  his- 
tory of  coral  islands.  If  the  theory  of  subsidence  cannot,  per- 
haps, be  considered  to  be  absolutely  demonstrated,  it  accords 
best  with  the  facts,  and,  indeed,  may  be  said  to  be  in  substantial 
harmony  with  them.  Furthermore,  it  helps  to  explain  the  sig- 
nificant fact,  first  pointed  out  by  Dana,  that  a  very  large,  if 
not  the  greater,  number  of  coral  structures  are  ranged  along 
the  line  of  greatest  depression  in  the  sea. 

The  question  here  naturally  suggests  itself:  Is  there  any 
evidence  supporting  the  theory  of  assumed  subsidence  of  the 
oceanic  basins  beyond  what  is  furnished  by  the  coral  islands  ? 
It  must  be  admitted  that  our  positive  knowledge  on  this  point 
is  very  limited  —  indeed,  almost  nothing.  But  various  con- 
siderations lead  to  the  belief  that  the  present  site  of  the  oceanic 
basins  is  a  very  ancient  one,  and  possibly  one  that  has  not 
materially  changed,  except  in  so  far  as  intensification  is  con- 
cerned, since  it  was  first  marked  out  as  the  most  prominent 
feature  of  the  earth's  crust.  While  manifestly  we  can  have  no 
proof  of  this  condition,  it  seems  but  reasonable  to  assume  that 
if  this  vast  depression  was  formed  through  an  early  flexure  of 
the  crust,  and  as  the  result  of  weakness  in  certain  parts  of  that 


448  ANGELO   HEILPKItf 

crust,  it  has  retained  its  position  of  depression  from  the  first. 
With  a  contracting  or  moving  crust,  moreover,  particularly 
under  the  special  conditions  of  loading  (sedimentation)  and 
continental  unloading  (denudation),  it  is  likely  that  a  depres- 
sion of  this  kind  would  tend  to  sink  or  to  subside,  and  force  a 
relief  from  strain  in  the  uplift  of  the  continents.  This  is  the 
view  now  held  by  probably  the  greater  number  of  physicists 
and  geologists.  But  it  does  not  carry  with  it  the  assumption 
of  a  necessary  permanence  in  the  positions  of  continents  and 
oceans;  it  does  not  imply  that  the  oceanic  basins  were  origi- 
nally of  the  extent  that  they  are  to-day,  as  we  are  led  to  be- 
lieve by  many  geologists.  It  is  far  more  probable  that  the 
existing  dimensions  have  been  brought  about  through  progres- 
sive or  cumulative  subsidence,  which  has  gradually  swept  away 
land-masses  that  at  one  time  occupied  some  of  the  present 
area  of  the  sea.  The  long  lines  of  ridges  which  have  been 
revealed  to  us  by  deep-sea  soundings,  and  the  placing  on  these 
of  many  of  the  oceanic  islands  (volcanic  peaks),  together  with 
the  evidence  which  the  past  and  present  distribution  of  animal 
life  carries  with  it,  all  support  this  conclusion.  It  seems,  in- 
deed, impossible  to  account  for  the  existence  of  oceanic  (vol- 
canic) islands,  or  for  the  negative  islands  which  rise  as  promi- 
nences from  the  oceanic  floor  to  within  a  comparatively  short 
distance  of  the  surface,  except  on  the  assumption  of  subsidence. 
What  is  the  significance  of  buttresses  like  St.  Helena,  Ascen- 
sion, the  Caroline  Islands,  or  the  giant  peaks  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands  rising  from  depths  of  two  or  three  miles,  or  more? 
Can  it  be  assumed  that  they  have  been  steadily  built  up  vol- 
canically  from  the  ocean  floor,  four  or  five  miles  in  height? 
This  is,  perhaps,  not  impossible,  but  it  hardly  appears  prob- 
able. Vulcanism  in  one  form  or  another  doubtless  manifests 
itself  over  the  floor  of  the  ocean,  but  all  indications  point  to  a 
comparatively  limited  action  in  the  greater  depths.  Were 
submarine  eruptions  at  all  numerous,  or  of  that  intensity 
which  might  be  assumed  to  be  necessary  for  the  construction 
of  a  giant  mountain-peak,  we  should  be  probably  made  aware 
of  their  existence  in  a  manner  not  less  emphatic  than  in  the 
case  of  subaerial  eruptions.  It  might  be  assumed  that  the 
long  intervals  at  which  eruptions  take  place  would  prevent 


VIEWS    ON    THE    COEAL   EEEF   PROBLEM    449 

special  notice  of  such  phenomena,  and  that,  consequently,  their 
effects,  even  if  most  momentous,  would  be  placed  practically 
beyond  observation.  But  this  is  not  likely  to  be  the  case. 
When  we  consider  the  large  number  of  peaks  that  in  one  form 
or  another  come  to,  or  beyond,  the  surface,  and  realize  how 
few  of  them  are  in  a  condition  of  activity,  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  many  of  these  peaks  are  to-day  in  a  course  of 
volcanic  construction,  or  that  other  submarine  peaks,  scat- 
tered between  these,  are  undergoing  a  similar  process  of  for- 
mation. It  seems  far  more  natural  to  assume  that  these  peaks 
or  islands  have  been  for  a  long  time  fully  formed,  and  that 
they  were  formed  at  a  time  when  their  relations  to  the  sur- 
rounding sea  were  more  nearly  those  which  govern  the  posi- 
tions of  by  far  the  greater  number  of  the  active  volcanoes  of 
to-day.  In  other  words,  they  were  probably  continental  or 
sub-continental,  and  their  present  positions  are  the  indices  of 
continental  subsidence;  the  vast  mass  of  overflowing  water 
may  have  extinguished  the  fires  that  at  one  time  supplied  the 
material  for  eruption. 

NEW  SUBMARINE  PEAKS 

The  recent  discovery  of  a  large  number  of  submarine  peaks, 
whose  existence  had  not  previously  been  even  surmised,  rising 
to  within  a  comparatively  short  distance  of  the  surface,  seems 
to  support  the  general  conclusion  of  subsidence.  The  sound- 
ings of  telegraph  ships  indicate  that  between  the  latitude  of 
Lisbon  and  the  island  of  Teneriffe  there  are  not  less  than  seven 
peaks  over  which  the  depth  of  water  varies  from  not  more  than 
12  to  500  fathoms.  From  the  entire  oceanic  basin  it  is  claimed 
that  there  are  already  known  about  300  such  "  submarine 
cones,  rising  from  great  depths  up  to  within  depths  of  from  500 
to  10  fathoms  from  the  surface." 

Probably  the  greatest  difficulty  that  lies  in  the  way  of  the 
acceptance  of  the  subsidence  theory  of  coral  structures  is  the 
fact  that  there  are  not  more  islands  which  are  in  a  condition 
of  semi-formation  —  i.  e.,  peaks,  partially  submerged  and  sur- 
rounded by  an  encircling  barrier  reef.  This  is  not  an  in- 
superable objection,  and  might  be  treated  by  some  geologists 


450  AtfGELO  HEILPRItf 

in  the  nature  of  negative  evidence.  But  the  fact  is  of  signifi- 
cance, and  must  be  taken  into  account  for  whatever  it  may  be 
worth,  in  all  theories  bearing  upon  the  formation  of  coral  islands. 

A  PROMINENT  OPPONENT  OF  THE  SUBSIDENCE  THEORY 

Since  the  preceding  notes  were  sent  to  press  Alexander 
Agassiz  has  published  his  observations  on  the  '  Coral  Reefs  of 
the  Hawaiian  Islands/  This  paper,  apart  from  giving  de- 
tailed descriptions  of  the  reefs  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  pre- 
sents, on  the  whole,  perhaps  the  clearest  statement  of  views 
bearing  upon  the  structure  of  coral  islands  that  has  yet  been 
published,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  it  contributes 
materially  toward  the  solution  of  the  general  problem.  Mr. 
Agassiz  asserts  himself  to  be  a  pronounced  opponent  of  the 
theory  of  subsidence,  as,  indeed,  he  has  always  been  since  he 
first  undertook  the  very  careful  survey  of  the  Florida  reefs. 
I  think  it  will  be  generally  admitted,  however,  that  the  evi- 
dence which  is  now  brought  forward  is,  as  far  as  the  substitute 
theory  is  concerned,  almost  wholly  negative,  while  much  of  it 
favors  the  theory  of  subsidence.  Mr.  Agassiz  assumes  certain 
definite  premises  or  propositions,  which  are  dogmatically 
stated,  but  it  is  difficult  to  find  the  exact  evidence  upon  which 
these  premises  are  based.  The  special  points  of  evidence  which, 
in  the  opinion  of  this  authority,  render  the  subsidence  the- 
ory unnecessary  and  untenable  are  practically  the  same  as  those 
which  have  already  been  discussed,  and  consequently  they  call 
for  but  little  detailed  consideration. 

Mr.  Agassiz  considers  it  '  remarkable  that  Darwin,  who  is  so 
strongly  opposed  to  all  cataclysmic  explanations,  should  in 
the  case  of  the  coral  reefs  cling  to  a  theory  which  is  based 
upon  the  disappearance  of  a  Pacific  continent,  and  be  appar- 
ently so  unwilling  to  recognize  the  agency  of  more  natural 
and  far  simpler  causes ' ;  and  he  further  expresses  himself : 
<  as  long  as  we  can  in  so  many  districts  explain  the  formation 
of  atolls  and  of  barrier  reefs  by  other  causes,  fully  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  numerous  exceptions  to  the  theory  of  Darwin, 
which  have  been  observed  by  so  many  investigators  since  the 
days  of  Darwin  and  Dana,  it  seems  unnecessary  to  account  for 


VIEWS   ON   THE   COEAL   REEF  PROBLEM    451 

their  presence  by  a  gigantic  subsidence,  of  which,  although  we 
may  not  deny  it,  we  can  yet  have  but  little  positive  proof' 
(p.  131).  These  reflections  are  well  so  far  as  they  go,  but  have 
the  '  natural  and  far  simpler  causes '  underlying  the  forma- 
tion of  coral  reefs,  which  are  to  take  precedence  over  the  Dar- 
winian hypothesis,  been  satisfactorily  demonstrated  3  I  believe 
not,  and  I  further  believe  with  Dana  and  Von  Lendenfeld  that 
no  facts  that  have  yet  been  brought  forward  stand  in  direct  op- 
position to  the  theory  of  subsidence.  Mr.  Agassiz  assures  us 
that  the  '  Mosquito  Bank,  the  Yucatan  Bank,  and  the  smaller 
banks  between  Honduras  and  Jamaica,  are  all  proof  that 
limestone  banks  are  forming  at  any  depth  in  the  sea,  or  upon 
pre-existing  telluric  folds  or  peaks,  constituting  banks  upon 
which,  when  they  have  reached  a  certain  depth,  corals  will 
grow '  (p.  133),  and  a  similar  condition  is  considered  to  under- 
lie the  formation  of  the  Florida  reefs.  It  has,  however,  not 
been  shown  that  these  banks  have  been  actually  built  up  in 
the  manner  that  has  been  described,  or  that  any  other  banks 
have  been  similarly  reared  from  really  great  depths.  The 
assertion  that  the  Florida  reefs  have  not  been  assisted  in  their 
upward  growth  by  elevation  (p.  142)  is,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  not 
supported  by  fact,  for  we  have  in  the  regular  horizontal  lime- 
stone beds  of  the  southern  part  of  the  peninsula  the  most  con- 
clusive evidence  of  elevation  even  as  late  as  the  Pliocene  and 
Post-Pliocene  periods,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  even 
if  the  condition  cannot  be  proved,  that  this  upward  movement 
did  not  stop  short  of  the  coral-forming  tract.  Nor  does  this 
movement  of  elevation  preclude  the  possibility  of  subsidences 
having  taken  place  coincidentally  in  the  same  region.  It  ap- 
pears to  me  by  no  means  certain  that  the  deep  channel  now  sep- 
arating the  apex  of  the  peninsula  of  Florida  from  Cuba,  and 
known  as  the  Straits  of  Florida,  was  really  cut  by  the  Gulf 
Stream,  as  is  maintained  by  Mr.  Agassiz.  It  seems  to  me  far 
more  probable  that  it,  as  well  as  some  of  the  other  deep  chan- 
nels separating  the  West  Indian  Islands,  was  formed  through 
subsidence  —  the  result  of  localized  breakages  in  the  crust. 
This  view  has  already  been  expressed  by  Suess,  who  draws  a 
close  parallel  between  the  physiographic  construction  of  the  basin 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  that  of  the  Mediterranean. 


452  ANGELO  HEILPRI^ 


DIFFERING  VIEWS  OF  THE  OPPONENTS  OF  DARWIN'S  THEORY 

Mr.  Agassiz  thinks  it  '  somewhat  surprising  that,  in  the  dis- 
cussion which  has  lately  been  carried  on  in  the  English  re- 
views by  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  Huxley,  Judd,  and  others,  re- 
garding the  new  theory  of  coral  reefs,  no  one  should  have 
dwelt  upon  the  fact,  that,  with  the  exception  of  Dana,  Jukes, 
and  others  who  published  their  results  on  coral  reefs  soon  after 
Darwin's  theory  took  the  scientific  world  by  storm,  not  a  single 
recent  original  investigator  of  coral  reefs  has  been  able  to 
accept  this  explanation  as  applicable  to  the  special  district 
which  he  himself  examined '  (p.  133).  This  condition  may  be 
surprising,  but  it  is  not  less  surprising  that  the  different  in- 
vestigators who  have  rejected  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  should 
have  thus  far  failed  to  agree  among  themselves  as  to  their  own 
special  theories.  Thus,  the  '  solution  theory '  of  the  formation 
of  the  atoll-lagoon,  which  has  been  so  much  emphasized  by 
Mr.  Murray,  and  the  possibilities  of  which  we  have  already 
discussed,  is  practically  rejected  by  Bourne,  Guppy,  and 
Wharton,  and  even  Agassiz  expresses  himself  not  fully  satis- 
fied with  its  efficiency.  And  as  far  as  I  know  no  satisfactory 
explanation  of  the  formation  of  the  deep  lagoons  has  been 
given  by  any  of  these  investigators.  Captain  Warton  has  re- 
cently described  a  number  of  submerged  reef-structures  in  the 
China  Sea  which  have  a  deep  flat  centre,  surrounded  by  an 
elevated  growing  rim;  it  is  assumed  that  were  this  rim  to 
grow  up  to  the  surface  we  would  have  the  characteristic  feat- 
ures of  an  atoll,  with  its  deep  central  lagoon,  presented.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  these  submerged  atoll-like 
banks  are  not  really  banks  of  subsidence,  rather  than  of  up- 
ward growth,  and  in  their  general  features  they  do  not  differ 
from  the  Chagos  Bank  which  Mr.  Darwin  considered  to  repre- 
sent a  half-drowned  atoll.  Until  a  satisfactory  explanation  is 
furnished  of  the  origin  of  these  central  lagoons,  so  long  must 
any  theory  bearing  upon  the  formation  of  coral  structures  be 
considered  merely  tentative.  In  the  case  of  the  Bermuda 
Islands,  which  limit  the  field  of  my  own  investigations  in  this 
direction,  I  am  confident  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the 


VIEWS    ON    THE    COKAL   EEEF   PROBLEM    453 

original  construction  of  the  region,  the  present  lagoon  features 
have  been  brought  about  through  subsidence;  and  this  con- 
clusion was  reached  before  me  by  Professor  Rice,  who  seems  to 
have  been  amply  satisfied  with  the  subsidence  theory! 

On  one  point  in  connection  with  his  recent  survey  Mr. 
Agassiz  furnishes  important  testimony,  and  that  is  as  to  the 
actual  thickness  of  the  coral-made  rock,  or,  at  least,  the  depth 
beneath  the  surface  at  which  this  rock  occurs.  This  has  been 
determined  by  the  artesian  borings  made  in  the  vicinity  of 
Honolulu,  and  elsewhere.  At  various  points  the  bore  pierced 
coral-rock  at  depths  of  100-500  feet  beneath  the  sea-level.  In 
the  well  of  Mr.  James  Campbell,  near  the  Pearl  River  La- 
goon (  ?),  28  feet  of  white  coral  was  struck  at  a  depth  of  nearly 
1000  feet  below  high-water  mark  (p.  153),  and  again  at 
'  Waimea,  Oahu,  900  feet  was  drilled  through  hard  ringing 
coral  rock '  (p.  152).  In  these  facts,  however,  Mr.  Agassiz  sees 
no  evidence  of  subsidence.  He  prefers  to  account  for  the  great 
thickness  of  the  coral  rock  '  by  the  extension  seaward  of  a  grow- 
ing reef,  active  only  within  narrow  limits  near  the  surface, 
which  is  constantly  pushing  its  way  seaward  upon  the  talus 
formed  below  the  living  edge.  This  talus  may  be  of  any  thick- 
ness, and  the  older  the  reef,  the  greater  its  height  would  be,  as 
nothing  indicates  that  in  the  Hawaiian  district  there  has  been 
any  subsidence  to  account  for  such  a  thickness  of  coral  rock  in 
its  fringing  reef  '  (p.  154).  But  where  are  the  evidences  which 
support  this  explanation  ?  I  must  confess  that  I  fail  to  see  any. 
The  assumption  of  a  seawardly-extending  talus  of  coral  is,  it 
appears  to  me,  purely  gratuitous.  Indeed,  with  the  very  gentle 
slope  that  these  islands  have  beneath  the  sea  it  is  extremely 
doubtful  if  any  extensive  talus  could  accumulate  as  a  result  of 
either  downflow  or  downwash.  Professor  Dana  has  well  supplied 
the  argument  on  this  point,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  un- 
answerable. With  a  gradient  of  perhaps  eight  degrees,  and 
not  impossibly  much  less,  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  there 
should  be  much  lateral  spread  of  detached  coral  boulders. 
Neither  wave-action  nor  the  action  of  the  oceanic  currents, 
except  possibly  under  conditions  of  earthquake  disturbance, 
would  be  likely  to  effect  the  required  displacement. 

Again,  it  might  be  asked,  what  kind  of  direct  evidence  must 


454  ANGELO  HEILPRrN" 

we  look  for  to  establish  the  point  that  there  has  been  no  great 
progressive  subsidence  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands?  The  needed 
evidence  is  just  of  that  kind  which  it  pleases  the  Earth  to  keep 
to  herself,  and  after  which  the  geologist  has  in  most  instances 
sought  in  vain.  The  fact  that  cinder-cones  are  found  '  with 
their  base  close  to  the  present  sea-level '  proves,  it  appears  to 
me,  nothing  in  this  connection,  and  I  fail  to  see  the  argument 
which  draws  from  their  existence  a  proof  of  non-subsidence. 
But  Agassiz  himself  admits  that  there  is  '  some  evidence  of 
subsidence  [about  50  feet]  on  the  southern  shore  of  Hawaii ' 
(p.  154). 

FACTS    IN    CORBOBORATION    OF    DAEWIN's    TlIEOEY 

On  the  whole,  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  facts  as  they  are  pre- 
sented are,  if  they  indicate  anything  at  all,  directly  in  favor 
of  subsidence,  and  of  subsidence  on  an  extensive  scale.  They 
are  in  my  mind  far  more  conclusive  than  the  somewhat  similar 
facts  which  have  been  generally  accepted  by  geologists  to  prove 
depression  or  subsidence  in  delta-deposits,  such  as  those  of 
the  Mississippi  or  Ganges.  Dr.  W.  O.  Crosby,  in  his  paper 
on  l  The  Elevated  Coral  Reefs  of  Cuba,'  shows  that  the  coral 
limestone  of  Cuba  is  in  places  at  least  a  thousand  feet  in 
thickness,  and  he  naturally  infers  that  there  must  have  been 
subsidence  to  nearly  this  amount.  Mr.  Agassiz,  commenting 
on  this  important  observation,  says  (p.  150,  note}  that  it  does 
'not  throw  any  additional  light  on  Darwin's  theory  of  sub- 
sidence ;  it  is  of  the  same  character  as  all  the  statements  which 
prove  the  subsidence  by  the  existence  of  coral  reefs,  and 
while  there  may  have  been  coral  reefs  formed  during  sub- 
sidence, it  does  not  prove  that  their  growth  is  due  to  subsidence 
any  more  than  the  presence  of  elevated  reefs  proves  them  to 
be  due  to  elevation,'  This  criticism  is  in  a  measure  valid, 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  one  of  the  '  strong '  points 
urged  by  Guppy  and  others  against  the  subsidence  theory  was 
the  (supposed)  non-existence  of  massive  deposits  of  coral-lime- 
stone, or  such  as  indicated  formation  through  protracted  sub- 
sidence. But  here  we  surely  have  such  a  limestone  (provided 
the  observation  is  correctly  made),  and  its  presence  removes 


VIEWS   ON    THE    CORAL   REEF   PROBLEM    455 

what  might  have  been  a  valid  argument  against  the  Darwin- 
ian hypothesis.  And  further,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
the  thousands  of  feet  of  reef-structure  which  have  been  de- 
scribed by  Sawkins  in  Jamaica  are  largely,  if  not  mainly,  of 
coral  growth,  and  represent  a  formation  produced  during  a 
long  period  of  subsidence. 

In  the  foregoing  discussion  of  the  structure  of  coral  reefs,  as 
also  in  the  chapter  treating  of  the  physical  history  of  the  Ber- 
mudas, I  have  used  the  term  '  subsidence '  (and  necessarily  its 
opposite  —  elevation)  in  a  relative  sense,  indicating  a  depression 
or  submergence  of  the  land  beneath  the  sea.  But  whether  this 
submergence  was  due  to  a  positive  movement  on  the  part  of 
the  land,  or  to  a  change  of  level  (rise)  in  the  water,  cannot 
readily  be  determined,  as  the  phenomena  attending  either  form 
of  movement  would  be  practically  identical.  The  broad  prob- 
lem of  oceanic  transgression  and  continental  stability,  which  has 
been  so  forcibly  outlined  by  Suess,  cannot  be  properly  treated 
in  this  place." 

Angelo  Heilprin's  views  concerning  the  origin  of  coral  reefs 
were  considered  a  weighty  reinforcement  of  Darwin's  theory. 
They  are  thus  referred  to  by  Francis  Darwin,  in  the  Life  of  his 
father  (Mr.  Darwin  quotes  from  Professor  Judd's  "  Critical 
Introduction  "  to  a  new  edition  of  his  father's  Coral  Beefs  and 
Volcanic  Islands,  etc.) : 

"  During  the  last  five  years,  the  whole  question  of  the  origin 
of  coral  reefs  and  islands  has  been  re-opened,  and  a  controversy 
has  arisen,  into  which,  unfortunately,  acrimonious  elements 
have  been  very  unnecessarily  introduced.  Those  who  desire  it 
will  find  clear  and  impartial  statements  of  the  varied  and  often 
mutually  destructive  views  put  forward  by  different  authors, 
in  three  works  which  have  made  their  appearance  within  the 
last  year  —  The  Bermuda  Islands,  by  Professor  Angelo  Heil- 
prin ;  Corals  and  Coral  Islands,  new  edition  by  Professor  J.  D. 
Dana;  and  the  third  edition  of  Darwin's  Coral  Reefs,  with 
Notes  and  Appendix  by  Professor  T.  G.  Bonney." 


456  ,        ANGELO  HEILPKIN 

A  SUMMARY  OP  HIS  ACHIEVEMENT 

A  critical  estimate  of  Angelo  Heilprin's  scientific  achieve- 
ments is  beyond  the  ability  of  the  present  writer,  but  the  value, 
to  his  generation,  of  what  he  did  and  what  he  was  cannot  be 
doubted. 

Nowhere,  perhaps,  was  the  lesson  of  Angelo  Heilprin's  life 
summed  up  so  well  as  in  the  lines  penned  by  one  close  to  the 
family,  in  an  editorial  article  in  the  Baltimore  News: 

"  The  life  of  Angelo  Heilprin  was  remarkable  not  only  as  that 
of  a  distinguished  naturalist,  a  man  of  comprehensive  learning, 
and  an  explorer  of  intrepid  daring,  but  perhaps  even  more  as  a 
life  lived  in  the  calm  pursuance  of  the  man's  individual  ideals  of 
living.  The  ordinary  rewards  of  successful  achievement,  scien- 
tific or  other,  had  for  him  no  compelling  attraction,  no  power  to 
swerve  him  from  the  path  which  his  love  of  nature,  his  passion 
for  knowledge,  and  his  serene  philosophy  laid  out  for  him.  Not 
even  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  a  university  professorship 
would  have  been  compensation,  to  his  mind,  for  the  independence 
of  action  and  of  movement  which,  as  a  scholar  and  investigator 
unattached  to  any  institution,  he  felt  able  to  command.  Though 
always  dependent  on  his  own  earnings  for  a  livelihood,  he  found 
in  the  occasional  results  of  literary  labors  and  of  special  lectures 
enough  to  satisfy  his  modest  needs,  and  he  declined  tempting 
opportunities  for  making  connections  which  would  have  carried 
with  them  both  honor  and  profit.  We  hear  much  talk  of  '  the 
simple  life/  but  we  seldom  see  an  exemplification  of  it  such  as 
is  given  by  the  life  of  a  man  of  splendid  endowments,  of  superb 
energy,  of  extraordinary  powers  of  work,  who  goes  serenely  on 
his  way  as  did  Heilprin,  ignoring  the  allurements  of  those  re- 
wards which  are,  with  the  generality  of  men,  the  constant  object 
of  anxious  endeavor.  The  lectureship  at  Yale  which  he  recently 
accepted,  occupying  his  time  two  or  three  months  a  year,  was 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  permanent  fettering  tie  that  he  ever 
assumed. 

There  were  two  things  that  gave  to  the  career  of  Angelo  Heil- 
prin a  distinguishing  character.  One  was  the  combination  of 
a  passionate  love  of  nature,  its  beauty  and  grandeur,  with  an  ab- 


A   SUMMAKY   OF   HIS   ACHIEVEMENT       457 

sorbing  devotion  to  the  scientific  study  of  nature.  The  other 
was  the  combination  of  untiring  study  in  the  closet,  made  fruit- 
ful by  a  prodigious  memory  and  extraordinary  accuracy  in  de- 
tails, with  such  love  of  adventure  and  such  coolness  and  daring 
as  are  not  usually  thought  to  be  compatible  with  the  temperament 
of  the  scholar.  ...  To  those,  however,  who  knew  the  man  it  is 
not  his  scientific  talents,  but  the  beauty  of  his  character  and  the 
wonderful  freshness  of  his  boyish  spirits,  that  make  his  taking 
off  so  peculiarly  sad.  And  to  those  who  knew  the  noble  figure 
of  Michael  Heilprin,  the  Jewish  scholar,  philosopher,  patriot, 
and  philanthropist,  the  highest  tribute  that  can  be  paid  to  Angelo 
Heilprin  is  that  he  was  a  worthy  son  of  his  father." 


PAET  III 
LOUIS   HEILPKBT 


Louis  HEILPKIN 


LOUIS  HEILPRIN 


HIS   EAELY   LIFE 

In  his  essay  on  Joseph  Joubert,  a  wise  Frenchman  not  yet 
sufficiently  known  to  the  general  reader,  but  appreciated  in  his 
day  by  Diderot  and  D'Alembert,  Matthew  Arnold  says : 

"  It  began  to  be  remarked  of  him  that  M.  Joubert '  s'inquietaU 
de  perfection  lien  plus  que  de  gloire  —  cared  far  more  about 
perfecting  himself  than  about  making  himself  a  reputation.' 
His  severity  of  morals  may  perhaps  have  been  rendered  easier 
to  him  by  the  delicacy  of  his  health;  but  the  delicacy  of  his 
health  will  not  by  itself  account  for  his  changeless  preference  of 
being  to  seeming,  knowing  to  showing,  studying  to  publishing. 
.  .  .  '  He  has  chosen/  Chateaubriand  (adopting  Epicurus's 
famous  words)  said  of  him,  '  to  hide  his  life.'  " 

What  is  true,  in  this  characterization,  of  Joubert,  is  also  true 
of  Louis  Heilprin.  Barring  a  serious  weakness  of  the  eyes, 
which  shut  out  from  him  much  of  the  world  of  objects  visible 
to  normal  sight,  it  could  not  be  said  that  he  had  delicacy  of 
health,  but  he  had  all  of  Joubert's  delicacy  of  soul,  and  he  chose 
to  hide  his  life,  though  few  lives  were  nobler. 

The  existence  of  such  extraordinary  knowledge  as  Louis  Heil- 
prin possessed  could  not,  however;  be  wholly  hidden  from  dis- 
cerning minds.  In  an  obituary  article  on  him  in  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  the  writer  said,  after  speaking  of  his  "  unrivalled 
comprehensiveness  and  accuracy  of  knowledge  throughout  a  large 
part  of  the  domain  covered  by  encyclopaedias,"  and  his  collabora- 
tion with  his  father  in  the  revision  of  the  American  Cyclopaedia : 

"  While  the  work  done  by  Mr.  Heilprin  was  chiefly  in  this  line, 
his  intellectual  powers  in  other  directions  were,  if  anything,  even 


462  LOUIS   HEILPEIN 

more  remarkable,  though  these  were  known  only  to  a  small  circle 
of  friends.  His  extraordinary  modesty  and  a  certain  shrinking, 
due  partly  to  the  circumstance  of  his  extreme  near-sightedness, 
held  him  back  from  activities  of  the  highest  kind,  for  which  his 
mental  endowments  fitted  him.  He  was  always  intensely  inter- 
ested in  all  matters  relating  to  engineering  and  transportation, 
and  had  a  penetrating  grasp  of  such  questions  as  that  of  rapid 
transit  in  New  York.  At  a  critical  time  in  the  discussion  of  this 
question,  he  sent  to  one  of  the  leading  engineering  journals  an 
elaborate  article  on  the  subject,  which  so  impressed  the  editor 
that  he  urged  Mr.  Heilprin  to  make  further  contributions  to  the 
magazine,  never  doubting  that  the  article  came  from  the  pen  of 
an  engineering  expert.  But  a  much  rarer  power  was  that  which 
was  shown  in  his  remarkable  grasp  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  theoretical  mechanics,  obtained  without  any  systematic 
study  of  the  subject.  He  had  no  mathematical  education  beyond 
the  elements  of  algebra,  geometry,  and  trigonometry;  but,  be- 
coming somehow  interested  in  the  parabola,  he  deduced  the 
radius  of  curvature  of  that  curve  by  reasoning  essentially  iden- 
tical with  that  which  underlies  the  processes  of  the  differential 
calculus.  Indeed,  his  analytical  power  in  many  domains  of 
thought,  including  political  economy,  was  as  remarkable  as  his 
prodigious  and  accurate  memory  for  facts." 

Louis  Heilprin's  life  was  as  uneventful  as  his  brother's  was 
rich  in  stirring  incidents.  He  was  born  in  Miskolcz,  Hungary, 
July  2,  1851.  His  early  years  in  this  country  were  spent  in 
the  closest  communion  with  his  brother.  They  received  the  same 
scant  instruction  in  the  public  schools  of  Brooklyn  and  Yonkers 
and  shared  the  same  tastes.  As  a  boy,  Louis  was  as  fond  of 
books  on  natural  history  as  was  Angelo,  and  he  had  the  same 
talent  for  drawing  and  for  turning  his  mechanical  skill  to  ac- 
count in  contrivances  of  one  sort  or  another.  There  is  still  in 
existence  a  set  of  chessmen,  of  the  usual  size  and  appearance, 
which  the  two  boys  carved  out  of  wood.  Owing  to  the  weakness 
of  his  eyes,  which  early  manifested  itself,  Louis  was  never  able 
to  read  more  than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time.  Until  late  in  life, 
all  his  reading,  which  ranged  far  and  wide,  and  much  of  his 
writing,  was  done  for  him,  generally  by  his  sisters.  That  his 
memory,  excellent  by  inheritance,  was  sharpened  by  the  need 


HIS   EAELY   LIFE  463 

of  concentrating  his  attention  on  what  was  read  to  him,  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  and  occasional  peeps  into  grammars,  foi  a  few 
minutes  at  a  time,  served  for  the  rapid  acquisition  of  the  struc- 
ture of  many  languages.  When,  after  years  of  such  desultory 
studying  and  strained  listening,  he,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  took 
his  place  at  the  side  of  his  father  in  revising  the  American 
Cyclopaedia  he  was  a  ripe  scholar  in  the  fields  of  history  and 
geography,  with  a  keen  logical  sense  and  an  admirably  clear  and 
concise  style.  Witness  the  article  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
which,  among  others  of  a  similar  nature,  he  contributed  to  the 
Cyclopaedia.  It  was  characterized  by  the  editors  as  a  model  of 
lucidity  and  extreme  condensation.  The  article  was  as  follows : 

"  Thirty  Years'  War,  a  religious  and  political  conflict  which 
involved  the  German  empire,  and  with  it  the  principal  states  of 
Europe,  from  1618  to  1648.  The  causes  which  led  to  this  strug- 
gle reach  back  to  the  early  part  of  the  16th  century,  when  the 
reformation  divided  Germany  into  two  hostile  religious  parties. 
Protestantism,  nearly  crushed  in  the  war  of  the  Smalcald  league, 
rose  triumphant  under  Maurice  of  Saxony,  and  with  the  peace 
of  Augsburg  (1555)  Charles  V.  beheld  the  chief  aim  of  his 
policy  forever  frustrated.  By  the  terms  of  this  peace,  which 
extended  to  those  Protestants  only  who  had  embraced  the  con- 
fession of  Augsburg,  the  right  was  secured  to  each  state  of  pre- 
scribing the  form  of  worship  within  its  limits,  and  to  all  sub- 
jects, Lutheran  or  Catholic,  the  privilege  of  emigrating  from 
the  states  where  their  creed  was  prohibited.  The  Protestants 
were  to  retain  the  ecclesiastical  possessions  which  they  had 
appropriated  previous  to  the  peace  of  Passau  in  1552.  But 
though  the  basis  of  a  definite  settlement  was  established,  two 
important  points  remained  on  which  no  agreement  could  be 
reached.  The  Catholic  party,  to  guard  against  the  danger  that 
would  accrue  to  the  church  in  the  future  appropriation  of  her 
prelacies  by  the  Protestants,  introduced  an  article,  known  as  the 
ecclesiastical  reservation,  by  which  all  prelates  who  should 
henceforth  abjure  Catholicism  were  to  forfeit  their  benefices. 
This  article  was  inserted  against  the  protest  of  the  Lutheran 
members  of  the  diet.  The  other  point  related  to  Protestant 
subjects  in  the  ecclesiastical  states,  for  whom  the  Protestant 
members  sought  to  secure  the  right  of  worship  in  such  terri- 


464  ,       LOUIS   HEILPKQT 

tones.  The  Catholics  refused  to  admit  such  an  article,  and  they 
could  only  obtain  instead  a  personal  declaration  to  the  same 
effect  from  the  emperor's  brother  Ferdinand,  who  presided  at 
the  diet  of  Augsburg.  The  exclusion  of  the  Calvinists  proved 
another  source  of  contention.  Under  the  rule  of  Ferdinand  I. 
(1556-'64)  and  his  son,  the  mild  Maximilian  II.  (1564-'76),  a 
general  tranquillity  was  maintained,  while  the  balance  was  fast 
turning  toward  the  side  of  the  Protestants,  who  in  the  Austrian 
territories  began  to  tyrannize  over  the  Catholics.  The  bigoted 
Rudolph  II.  (1576-1612),  swayed  by  the  Jesuits  and  the  court 
of  Spain,  resolved  to  repress  Protestantism,  and  in  his  immedi- 
ate dominions  proceeded  to  restrict,  and  finally  even  to  abolish 
the  Protestant  worship.  Religious  disputes  again  distracted 
Germany.  The  enmity  between  Lutherans  and  Calvinists 
equalled  their  mutual  hate  for  the  Catholics.  The  aulic  council, 
whose  decisions  were  inspired  by  the  imperial  court,  usurped  an 
unlawful  jurisdiction  in  the  empire.  In  Aix-la-Chapelle  the 
Protestants  established  their  worship  in  spite  of  the  Catholics 
(1580),  and  at  first  beat  back  the  troops  sent  to  execute  the  im- 
perial ban.  About  the  same  time  an  opportunity  was  presented 
of  enforcing  the  ecclesiastical  reservation.  Gebhard,  archbishop 
of  Cologne,  abjured  his  faith  to  marry  a  Calvinist  lady,  but 
determined  not  to  renounce  his  see.  He  was  accordingly  placed 
under  the  ban  of  the  empire,  and  a  war  ensued,  which  ended  in 
his  defeat  and  expulsion  in  1584.  A  violent  contest  followed 
for  the  see  of  Strasburg.  In  1607  the  Protestant  imperial  city 
of  Donauworth,  whose  inhabitants  an  abbot  had  provoked  to 
acts  of  violence  by  processions,  prohibited  within  the  town,  was 
deprived  of  its  liberties,  in  open  violation  of  the  peace  of  reli- 
gion. Alarmed  for  their  safety,  the  Protestant  princes,  in  May, 
1608,  formed  at  Auhausen  in  Franconia  an  offensive  and  defen- 
sive league  styled  the  •'  Evangelical  Union.'  It  soon  comprised 
the  Palatinate,  Neuburg,  Baden,  Wiirtemberg,  Brandenburg, 
Strasburg,  Nuremberg,  and  other  states  of  the  empire.  Fred- 
erick IV.,  elector  palatine,  a  Calvinist,  was  placed  at  its  head, 
though  its  most  active  member  was  Christian  of  Anhalt.  The 
Lutheran  elector  of  Saxony,  however,  declined  to  join  the  union. 
On  their  side  the  Catholic  states,  independently  of  Austria,  es- 
tablished the  league  (July,  1609),  with  Maximilian,  duke  of 


AETICLE   OX   THIRTY  YEARS'   WAR       465 

Bavaria,  at  their  head.    In  the  mean  while  the  Protestants  of 
Hungary  and  Austria  had  risen  against  Rudolph  and  recovered 
their  rights  (see  RUDOLPH  II.,  and  MATTHIAS)  ;   and  thus  en- 
couraged, their  brethren  in  Bohemia,  in  July,  1609,  wrung  the 
Majestatsbrief  from  the  emperor.     Amid  these  disorders  the 
heirless  duke  of  Julich  died  (March,  1609),  leaving  a  host  of 
claimants  to  his  dominions,  which  were  at  once  jointly  seized  by( 
Brandenburg  and  Neuburg.    Rudolph  ordered  a  levy  of  troops 
to  enforce  their  sequestration.     The  Protestant  princes  flew  to 
arms,  and  invoked  the  aid  of  France,  the  Netherlands,  and  other 
powers.    Henry  IV.  of  France  now  hoped  to  execute  his  design 
of  humbling  the  house  of  Hapsburg,  and  was  preparing  to  in- 
vade Germany  when  the  dagger  of  Ravaillac  terminated  his 
career  (May  14,  1610).    Hostilities  ceased,  but  under  the  em- 
peror Matthias,  who  succeeded  in  1612,  the  unsettled  claims  of 
Julich  again  led  to  war,  and  Dutch  and  Spaniards,  called  in  by 
Brandenburg  and  Neuburg  respectively,  occupied  the  disputed 
lands.    Matthias,  being  without  heirs,  was  induced  to  put  for- 
ward as  his  successor  his  cousin  Ferdinand  of  the  Styrian  line, 
whose  bigotry  and  rigor  alarmed  the  Protestants.     Ferdinand 
was  nevertheless  crowned  in  Bohemia  in  1617  and  in  Hungary 
in  1618.    But  already  in  Bohemia  an  event  had  occurred  which 
precipitated  the  thirty  years'  war.    The  Protestant  inhabitants 
of  Klostergraben  and  Braunau  had  erected  new  churches  against 
the  prohibition  of  the  archbishop  of  Prague  and  the  abbot  of 
Braunau,  lords  of  the  two  places,  who  enforced  their  authority 
by  seizing  the  buildings.     Protestants  and  Catholics  appealed 
to  a  somewhat  obscurely  worded  clause  in  the  Majestatsbrief, 
which  the  former  contended  gave  the  right  of  building  new 
churches  to  the  Protestants  of  the  towns  in  general,  while  the 
latter  maintained  that  it  extended  only  to  the  states  and  royal 
towns.     The  court  supported  the  Catholics,  and  refused  all  re- 
dress.   The  storm  now  burst.    On  May  23,  1618,  an  assemblage 
of  Protestants,  led  by  Count  Thurn,  entered  the  palace  at 
Prague,  and  seizing  Slavata  and  Martinitz,  the  most  odious 
members  of  the  council  of  regency  appointed  by  the  crown, 
hurled  them  together  with  their  secretary  from  a  lofty  window. 
They  escaped  as  if  by  a  miracle.    Thurn  and  his  associates  or- 
ganized a  general  rising,  and  evoked  the  assistance  of  the  union 


466  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

and  of  Bethlen  Gabor  of  Transylvania.  In  a  short  time  nearly 
all  Bohemia  was  in  their  hands.  They  were  joined  by  the  Sile- 
gians,  and  by  Mansfeld  with  4,000  men  raised  by  the  union. 
Matthias  was  forsaken  by  the  empire,  and  the  troops  of  Spain 
sent  to  his  aid,  under  Bucquoy  and  Dampierre,  were  unable  to 
check  the  insurrection,  which  spread  into  Upper  Austria  and 
Moravia.  In  the  midst  of  this  crisis  Matthias  died  (March, 
1619),  and  Ferdinand,  abandoned  by  his  subjects,  was  soon 
shut  up  in  Vienna  by  the  victorious  Thurn.  His  firmness  and 
timely  succor  from  Dampierre  saved  his  sinking  throne.  Thurn 
withdrew,  and  Ferdinand,  hastening  to  Frankfort,  was  elected 
emperor  (August,  1619).  The  Bohemians,  who  had  declared 
their  throne  vacant,  offered  it  to  the  young  elector  palatine  Fred- 
erick V.,  son-in-law  of  James  I.  of  England,  and  he  was  crowned 
in  Prague.  Bethlen  Gabor  overran  Hungary,  and  Vienna  was 
again  threatened,  but  again  saved.  The  emperor  now  prepared 
to  conquer  Frederick  by  means  of  the  duke  of  Bavaria,  who  was 
to  be  indemnified  for  his  services.  Maximilian  assembled  the 
forces  of  the  league,  awed  the  union  into  inaction,  and  quickly 
subdued  Upper  Austria.  John  George,  the  elector  of  Saxony, 
though  a  Protestant,  took  up  arms  against  Frederick,  and  over- 
ran Lusatia,  and  the  Spanish  general  Spinola  invaded  the  Lower 
Palatinate,  while  Maximilian  joined  Bucquoy  in  Bohemia. 
The  battle  of  the  White  Mountain,  before  the  walls  of  Prague, 
Nov.  8,  1620,  drove  Frederick  from  his  throne,  and  left  Bohe- 
mia to  the  vengeance  of  the  emperor.  Executions  and  confisca- 
tions followed.  The  Protestant  worship  was  abolished,  the 
kingdom  given  over  to  the  Jesuits,  and  the  Majestdtsbrief  cut 
into  pieces.  The  electoral  dignity,  forfeited  by  Frederick,  and 
the  Upper  Palatinate,  were  eventually  transferred  to  Maximil- 
ian. The  battle  of  Prague  was  followed  by  the  dissolution  of  the 
Protestant  union,  but  the  intrepid  Mansfeld,  who  had  not  shared 
in  the  defeat,  determined  to  retain  his  army.  He  marched  from 
Bohemia  to  Alsace,  and  struggled  with  Tilly,  the  general  of 
Maximilian  and  the  league.  George  Frederick,  margrave  of 
Baden-Durlach,  and  Christian  of  Brunswick,  a  lawless  adven- 
turer like  Mansfeld,  who  made  war  support  war,  took  up  arms 
for  Frederick.  Tilly  crushed  the  margrave  at  Wimpfen  on  the 
Neckar,  and  routed  Christian  at  Hochst  (1622).  Christian 


AETICLE    0£T   THIRTY   YEARS'   WAR       467 

and  Mansfeld  passed  into  the  Netherlands,  but  soon  renewed 
the  contest  with  Tilly,  who  finally  drove  them  from  the  field. 
Bethlen  Gabor,  who  had  broken  the  peace  of  Nikolsburg  and 
penetrated  into  Moravia,  made  a  truce  with  the  emperor  in 
1624.  The  Catholic  party  was  triumphant,  but  the  persecutions 
and  the  excesses  which  now  ensued  rekindled  the  flames  of  war. 
The  states  of  Lower  Saxony  rose  in  1625,  and  united  with  Chris- 
tian IV.  of  Denmark,  who  took  the  lead  in  the  struggle.  Eng- 
land sent  subsidies,  Holland  aided  with  troops,  and  Christian 
of  Brunswick  and  Mansfeld  reappeared  in  the  field.  Hitherto 
it  was  not  with  the  forces  of  Austria  but  with  those  of  the  league 
and  Spain  that  Ferdinand  had  carried  on  the  contest.  Wallen- 
stein  now  came  forward  with  his  remarkable  offer,  and  with 
his  own  resources  raised  a  vast  and  independent  army  for  the 
emperor.  In  April,  1626,  he  nearly  annihilated  the  army  of 
Mansfeld  at  Dessau,  and  pursued  him  into  Hungary,  while  Tilly 
in  August  overwhelmed  the  king  of  Denmark  at  Lutter.  Wal- 
lenstein  returning  drove  back  the  Danes  into  Jutland  and  their 
islands,  occupied  Mecklenburg  and  Pomerania,  and  extended 
his  designs  to  the  Baltic,  when  the  walls  of  Stralsund  arrested 
his  career  (1628).  Peace  was  made  with  Christian  IV.  at 
Liibeck,  May,  1629.  The  Protestants  were  everywhere  subdued. 
Ferdinand  had  proceeded  to  consummate  the  work  of  the  Catho- 
lic reaction.  He  issued  the  edict  of  restitution,  dated  March  6 
(N.  S.),  1629,  ordering  the  surrender  by  the  Protestants  of  all 
mediatized  church  property  secularized  since  1552,  and  the 
transfer  to  Catholic  prelates  of  all  immediate  sees  held  by  Prot- 
estants against  the  ecclesiastical  reservation,  including  two  arch- 
bishoprics and  many  important  bishoprics.  This  impolitic  meas- 
ure inflamed  afresh  the  Protestant  states.  Magdeburg  firmly 
resisted  its  execution.  But  the  power  of  Austria  and  the  league 
was  suddenly  repressed  by  a  new  attack  from  the  north.  Fer- 
dinand was  combating  France  in  the  contest  for  Mantua.  Riche- 
lieu, eager  to  involve  him  in  a  foreign  war,  mediated  a  truce  be- 
tween Gustavus  Adolphus  and  Poland,  and  the  Swedish  hero 
came  forward  to  the  rescue  of  German  Protestantism.  At  the 
very  moment  of  this  new  danger,  the  league,  exasperated  by  the 
conduct  of  Wallenstein,  compelled  Ferdinand  to  dismiss  him, 
and  Tilly  received  the  chief  command.  In  June,  1630,  Gus- 


468  LOUIS   HEILPRIN- 

tavns  landed  in  Pomerania  and  entered  into  a  treaty  with  the 
aged  and  overawed  duke  Bogislas  XIV.,  and  in  January,  1631, 
concluded  a  subsidiary  alliance  with  France.  John  George  of 
Saxony,  George  William,  elector  of  Brandenburg,  and  other 
Protestant  princes  met  at  Leipsic  in  February,  1631,  and  formed 
a  league  of  neutrality.  William  V.  of  Hesse-Cassel  became  the 
bold  ally  of  Sweden.  Gustavus  forced  the  imperialists  from 
Pomerania  and  advanced  through  Brandenburg,  but  was  unable 
to  prevent  the  terrible  fate  of  Magdeburg,  which  on  May  10 
(X.  S.,  20)  was  stormed  by  Tilly  and  Pappenheim.  He  now 
compelled  the  elector  of  Brandenburg  to  enter  into  a  treaty, 
avoided  an  engagement  with  Tilly,  and  restored  Mecklenburg  to 
its  dispossessed  dukes.  Tilly,  who  had  received  orders  to  break 
up  the  Leipsic  union,  attacked  Saxony,  and  drove  the  mean- 
spirited  elector  into  an  alliance  with  Sweden.  Gustavus 
marched  against  him,  and  on  Sept.  7  (N.  S.,  17),  1631,  Tilly 
sustained  a  crushing  defeat  at  Breitenfeld  near  Leipsic.  The 
Catholic  power  lay  prostrate.  While  the  Saxon  general  Arnheim 
invaded  Bohemia  and  occupied  Prague,  Gustavus  carried  his 
victorious  arms  to  the  Rhine  and  into  Swabia,  forced  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Lech,  where  Tilly  was  mortally  wounded  (April  5, 
1632),  and  overrunning  Bavaria  threatened  the  Austrian  do- 
minions. He  was  checked  by  Wallenstein,  who,  after  witnessing 
with  secret  joy  the  misfortunes  of  the  Catholics,  had  been  re- 
invested by  Ferdinand  with  the  supreme  command.  A  new 
army  had  arisen  at  his  call.  He  was  joined  by  Maximilian  and 
Aldringer  with  the  forces  of  the  league,  and  at  Nuremberg  the 
contending  armies  stood  face  to  face  till  their  ranks  wasted  away. 
Then  carrying  the  war  northward,  they  fought  a  desperate  battle 
at  Liitzen,  Nov.  6  (N.  S.,  16),  1632.  Gustavus  fell,  but  the 
Swedes  remained  masters  of  the  field.  Pappenheim  was  among 
the  slain.  The  death  of  the  Swedish  king,  which  was  followed 
by  that  of  the  unfortunate  Frederick  V.,  spread  consternation 
among  the  Protestants.  But  the  Swedish  chancellor  Oxenstiern 
was  equal  to  the  occasion,  while  generals  like  Bernhard  of  Wei- 
mar, Horn,  Baner,  and  Torstenson,  trained  in  the  school  of 
Gustavus,  emulated  his  deeds.  In  1633  Oxenstiern  assembled 
the  states  of  upper  Germany  at  Heilbronn,  and  was  charged  with 
the  conduct  of  the  war.  Wallenstein,  instead  of  securing  to  the 


AKTICLE    ON    THIRTY   YEARS'   WAR       469 

emperor  the  advantages  resulting  from  the  death  of  his  great 
adversary,  surprised  the  world  by  his  inactivity  and  mysterious 
conduct.  He  led  his  army  into  Silesia,  and  confronted  the 
Saxons  and  Swedes,  but  wasted  the  campaign  in  negotiations. 
With  a  devoted  army  at  his  command,  he  was  now  bent  exclu- 
sively on  schemes  of  personal  ambition.  The  suspicions  of  the 
court  were  aroused,  and  his  treasonable  designs  ended  in  his 
assassination  in  February,  1634.  (See  WALLENSTEIN.)  The 
chief  command  was  transferred  to  the  emperor's  son  Ferdinand, 
who,  seconded  by  Gallas  and  Piccolomini,  advanced  through 
Bavaria.  He  was  joined  by  Charles  of  Lorraine  and  a  Spanish 
army,  and  on  Sept.  6  the  Protestant  forces  under  Bernhard  of 
Weimar  and  the  Swedish  general  Horn  weve  nearly  annihilated 
at  Nordlingen.  This  blow  was  followed  by  the  defection  of  the 
elector  of  Saxony,  who  in  May,  1635,  entered  into  the  peace  of 
Prague  with  the  emperor  and  turned  his  arms  against  his  recent 
allies.  The  acceptance  of  the  terms  of  this  peace,  which  sacri- 
ficed the  Calvinists  and  Swedes,  was  to  be  made  compulsory  in 
all  the  states  and  enforced  by  an  army  of  execution.  Many  of 
the  Protestant  states  assented  or  were  forced  to  yield,  but  Swe- 
den, having  no  alternative  short  of  relinquishing  her  conquest, 
determined  to  continue  the  struggle.  Richelieu  seized  the  op- 
portunity offered  by  the  depression  of  the  Protestant  cause  to 
promote  the  aggrandizement  of  France.  He  renewed  the 
alliance  with  Sweden,  declared  war  against  Spain,  and  made 
Bernhard  commander  of  the  French  forces.  Baner  began  a 
series  of  brilliant  campaigns,  won  a  great  victory  over  the  armies 
of  John  George  and  Hatzfeld  at  Wittstock,  Sept.  24,  1636,  and 
carried  the  war  into  the  Austrian  territories.  In  the  mean  while 
France  was  attacked  by  the  Spaniards,  the  imperialists,  and 
Charles  of  Lorraine,  and  John  de  Weert  spread  terror  to  the 
gates  of  Paris.  In  February,  1637,  the  emperor  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Ferdinand  III.  The  year  1638  opened 
with  the  successes  of  Bernhard,  who  in  February  captured  John 
de  Weert  and  other  generals  at  Rheinfelden.  In  December  he 
took  the  important  fortress  of  Breisach,  and  outwitted  the 
French  by  appropriating  his  conquests.  On  his  sudden  death 
in  1639,  France  obtained  control  of  his  army,  and  pressed  the 
war  with  vigor.  Torstenson,  a  general  unsurpassed  in  the  celer- 


470  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

ity  of  his  movements,  who  became  the  Swedish  commander-in- 
chief  on  the  death  of  Baner  in  1641,  shook  the  Austrian  throne 
by  repeated  invasions,  overthrew  the  archduke  Leopold  William 
and  Piccolomini  at  Breitenfeld,  Oct.  23,  1642,  chastised  Chris- 
tian IV.  for  his  designs  against  Sweden,  completely  defeated 
Gallas  in  1644,  won  a  great  victory  at  Jankau  in  Bohemia,  Feb. 
24,  1645,  taking  Hatzfeld  prisoner,  and  marched  on  Vienna. 
Rakoczy,  prince  of  Transylvania,  advanced  through  Hungary, 
and  Vienna  barely  escaped  the  combined  attack.  On  the  side 
of  the  French,  Guebriant  signalized  himself  at  Kempen  in  Jan- 
uary, 1642,  and  the  young  duke  d'Enghien  (the  future  Conde) 
beat  the  Spaniards  at  Rocroy  in  1643.  But  in  November, 
1643,  the  French  suffered  a  great  defeat  at  Tuttlingen  in 
Swabia  through  the  genius  of  John  de  Weert.  Conde  and 
Turenne  retrieved  this  disgrace  near  Nordlingen  in  August, 
1645,  where  Mercy,  their  eminent  adversary,  fell.  Turenne 
and  Wrangel,  the  successor  of  Torstenson,  reduced  Maxi- 
milian of  Bavaria,  the  steadfast  ally  of  Austria,  to  the  last 
extremity.  Konigsmark,  another  Swedish  general,  made  him- 
self master  of  a  part  of  Prague  in  July,  1648,  and  the  old 
town,  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Moldau,  had  been  attacked, 
though  fruitlessly,  when  on  Nov.  3  the  news  came  of  the 
signing  of  the  peace  of  Westphalia.  This  peace  terminated 
a  struggle  which  had  converted  Germany  into  a  vast  field  of  deso- 
lation and  horror.  —  As  early  as  1641  the  preliminaries  regard- 
ing the  conduct  of  the  negotiations  had  been  arranged  at  Ham- 
burg, and  Miinster  and  Osnabriick  in  the  circle  of  Westphalia 
assigned  for  the  meeting  of  two  separate  congresses.  At  Miinster 
the  empire,  France,  Spain,  and  the  Catholics  generally  were  to 
negotiate,  under  the  mediation  of  the  pope ;  and  at  Osnabriick 
the  empire,  Sweden,  and  the  Protestants,  under  that  of  Den- 
mark. But  discussions  on  ceremonial  and  the  varying  fortunes 
of  the  war  caused  years  to  elapse  before  the  congresses  could 
assemble  and  enter  upon  earnest  deliberations.  Denmark  and 
the  pope  ultimately  withdrew,  and  Venice  became  the  mediator. 
Separate  treaties  were  concluded  at  Osnabriick  (Aug.  6,  1648) 
and  Miinster  (Sept.  8),  and  on  Oct.  24,  1648,  the  definitive  sig- 
natures were  annexed.  Nearly  every  power  of  Europe  was  rep- 
resented. Holland  and  Switzerland  were  declared  independent 


AKTICLE    ON   THIRTY   YEARS'    WAR       471 

of  the  empire.    France  gained  Alsace,  and  was  confirmed  in  the 
possession  of  the  bishoprics  of  Toul,  Metz,  and  Verdun.    Sweden 
received  Pomerania  W.  of  the  Oder,  together  with  Stettin  and 
other  towns,  the  island  of  Riigen,  Wismar,  and  the  secularized 
sees  of  Bremen  and  Verden ;  the  whole  to  be  held  as  a  fief  of  the 
empire,  with  three  votes  in  the  diet.    The  Swedes  were  further- 
more accorded  5,000,000  thalers.    Brandenburg  retained  further 
Pomerania,  received  the  secularized  sees  of  Halberstadt,  Min- 
den,  and  Cammin,  and  secured  the  succession  to  the  see  of  Mag- 
deburg.   The  elector  of  Saxony  was  to  retain  Lusatia  and  some 
minor  acquisitions;   and  the  secularized  bishoprics  of  Schwerin 
and  Ratzeburg  were  allotted  to  Mecklenburg.    The  Upper  Pa- 
latinate with  the  dignity  of  elector  was  COD  firmed  to  Maximilian 
of  Bavaria,  and  an  eighth  electorate  was  erected  for  Charles 
Louis,  son  of  Frederick  V.,  who  recovered  the  Lower  Palatinate. 
By  a  singular  article  the  see  of  Osnabriick  was  to  be  alternately 
vested  in  a  Catholic  bishop  and  a  prince  of  the  house  of  Bruns- 
wick-Liineburg.     The  possession  of  the  ecclesiastical  benefices 
was  placed  on  the  basis  of  Jan.  1  (N.  S.),  1624;  and  in  the  case 
of  the  Palatinate,  Baden-Durlach,  and  Wurtemberg,  the  Catho- 
lics were  obliged  to  accept  1618  as  the  normal  year.    The  treaty 
introduced  an  age  of  more  general  toleration  in  Germany.    The 
peace  of  religion  of  1555  was  confirmed  and  extended  to  the  Cal- 
vinists,  and  the  equality  of  the  Catholic,  Lutheran,  and  Re- 
formed creeds  was  established.     In  all  religious  questions  the 
Protestants  were  to  have  an  equal  weight  with  the  Catholics  in 
the  diet  and  high  courts  of  the  empire.    Each  state  of  the  em- 
pire was  to  exercise  the  right  of  sovereignty,  with  the  liberty  of 
concluding  treaties  and  alliances.    The  autonomy  thus  accorded 
to  the  states,  and  the  still  further  diminution  of  the  emperor's 
authority,  weakened  the  structure  of  the  Germanic  body,  and 
paved  the  way  for  foreign  intervention.    The  constitutional  pro- 
visions of  the  treaty  became  the  fundamental  law  of  the  em- 
pire.   The  peace  of  Westphalia  terminated  the  religious  wars  of 
Europe,  and  forms  a  grand  landmark  in  its  history.    The  empire 
had  declined  into  little  more  than  a  confederation  of  states,  and 
the  era  of  French  greatness  succeeded  to  that  of  Hapsburg  ascen- 
dancy.   Spain  acknowledged  the  independence  of  Holland,  and 
continued  the  war  against  France  with  disastrous  results." 


II 

THE   "HISTORICAL   REFERENCE   BOOK" 

After  the  completion  of  his  work  on  the  American  Cyclo- 
paedia and  the  condensed  edition  of  that  work,  Louis  Heil- 
prin  devoted  a  number  of  years  to  the  preparation  of  his  His- 
torical Reference  Book  (1884),  which  has  become  a  standard 
manual,  of  unrivalled  accuracy.  The  book  is  at  once  a  chrono- 
logical table  of  universal  history,  a  chronological  dictionary  of 
universal  history,  and  a  biographical  dictionary. 

The  compiling  of  the  Reference  Book  naturally  consumed  far 
more  time  than  would  have  been  necessary  under  normal  con- 
ditions, as  the  author  was  compelled  to  dictate  everything,  and 
all  the  consulting  of  authorities  had  to  be  done  by  other  eyes, 
under  his  minute  direction.  If,  as  was  said  of  the  book,  it  con- 
tained not  a  single  misprint,  this  was  the  result  of  such  care  in 
writing  and  proofreading  as  few  similar  works  have  ever  had. 
'As  regards  the  labor  of  verifying  conflicting  statements  of 
authorities,  the  preface  gives  us  an  instructive  clue.  In  it  the 
author  says : 

"  A  few  examples  may  serve  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of 
the  singular  pitfalls  which  beset  the  path  of  the  chronologist, 
and  of  the  confusion  and  contradiction  which  he  constantly 
encounters.  .  .  . 

The  utmost  confusion  prevails  in  books  respecting  dates  in 
the  seventeenth  century  and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth,  re- 
sulting from  the  circumstance  that  the  Gregorian  calendar  was 
adopted  at  different  times  by  different  countries.  It  has  been 
customary  with  historians  down  to  our  own  time  to  retain  the 
Old  Style  in  treating  the  history  of  a  Protestant  country  in  the 
period  before  the  adoption  of  the  New  Style  in  that  country,  but 
there  is  no  uniformity  in  this  respect,  the  New  Style  being  very 


THE    "HISTOBICAL   REFERENCE   BOOK"    473 

frequently  used.  The  dates  of  events  of  an  international  charac- 
ter (battles,  treaties),  events  belonging  at  once  to  the  history  of 
a  Protestant  and  a  Catholic  country,  are  given  according  to  the 
Old  Style  by  one  writer  and  by  another  according  to  the  New. 
In  treating  of  the  wars  between  the  English  and  the  French  in 
the  seventeenth  century  and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth,  the 
French  historians  will  follow  the  Gregorian  calendar,  the  Eng- 
lish to  a  great  extent  the  Julian.  The  same  writer  will  not 
unfrequently  use  the  Old  Style  in  one  place  and  the  New  in 
another.  The  case  grows  worse  when  we  come  to  encyclopedic 
publications,  in  whose  preparation  different  authorities  are  con- 
sulted at  every  step.  The  individual  statements  in  any  one  work 
will  frequently  be  found  to  contradict  each  other.  Let  us  take 
some  of  the  principal  events  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  ex- 
amine the  chronological  statements  in  various  works.  The  date 
of  the  storming  of  Magdeburg  in  the  l  Encyclopaedia  of  Chro- 
nology '  is  given  (under  the  head  of  MAGDEBURG)  according  to 
the  New  Style,  May  20,  1631;  in  '  Haydn's  Dictionary  of 
Dates,'  according  to  the  Old,  May  10.  The  battle  of  Leipsic 
(under  the  head  of  LEIPSIC)  is  given  in  both  according  to  the 
Old  Style,  Sept.  7,  1631,  and  each  gives  the  battle  of  Liitzen 
(under  the  head  of  LUTZEN)  according  to  the  New,  Nov.  16, 
1632.  In  the  notice  of  General  Pappenheim  the  '  Encyclopedia 
of  Chronology'  gives  Nov.  6  as  the  date  of  the  latter  battle. 
In  the  '  Encyclopedia  of  Chronology '  the  battle  of  Wittstock  is 
stated  to  have  been  fought  Oct.  4,  1636  (the  date  according  to 
the  New  Style)  under  the  head  of  WITTSTOCK,  and  Sept.  24 
under  the  head  of  BANNIER  (Baner).  The  writer  of  the  article 
AUSTRIA  in  the  last  edition  of  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica ' 
gives  the  capture  of  Magdeburg  and  the  battles  of  Liitzen  and 
Wittstock  according  to  the  New  Style,  but  the  battle  of  Leipsic 
according  to  the  Old.  In  Weber's  universal  history  we  have  the 
Old. Style  for  the  battles  of  Leipsic  and  Liitzen,  and  the  New  for 
the  battle  of  Nb'rdlingen  (Aug.  27-Sept.  6,  1634)  and  that  of 
Wittstock.  It  will  occasionally  happen  that  writers  who  use  the 
New  Style  will  fall  into  the  ludicrous  error  of  adding  10  (11) 
days  to  a  date  already  converted  to  the  New  Style.  In  the 
article  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in  the  very  valuable  '  Ency- 
klopadie  der  neueren  Geschichte'  (Gotha,  1880-'84)  the  writer, 


474  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

who  uses  the  New  Style,  gives  March  16,  1629,  as  the  date  of 
publication  of  the  Edict  of  Restitution,  which,  however,  was 
dated  March  6  according  to  the  Gregorian  calendar,  and  in  like 
manner  he  states  that  the  battle  of  Wittstock  was  fought  Oct.  14, 
1636,  when  in  reality  the  true  date  is  Oct.  4,  New  Style  (Old 
Style,  Sept.  24),  which  date  is  given  in  the  same  work  in  the 
article  BANEB. 

Another  source  of  perplexity  to  the  chronologist,  more  espe- 
cially in  dealing  with  biographical  dates,  arises  from  the  circum- 
stance that  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  year  has 
been  variously  placed  at  different  periods  and  in  different  coun- 
tries, so  that  it  frequently  happens  that  an  event  described  as 
having  taken  place  in  a  particular  year  by  a  contemporary  writer 
actually  falls  in  a  different  year  according  to  modern  chrono- 
logical reckoning.  In  England  the  year  formerly  began  with 
the  25th  of  March.  It  was  not  until  1752  that  the  first  of 
January  was  made  the  beginning  of  the  legal  year.  In  parts 
of  Italy,  likewise,  the  first  day  of  the  year  was  the  25th  of 
March  down  to  the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  the  Pisan 
reckoning  was  a  year  ahead  of  the  Florentine.  In  the  Venetian 
Republic  it  was  the  first  day  of  March.  In  France  during  the 
period  of  the  Capetian  and  Valois  dynasties  the  year  began  with 
Easter.  The  duchy  of  Burgundy  and  portions  of  the  Nether- 
lands had  the  same  reckoning. 

Two  cases  will  here  be  presented  in  which  there  is  a  bewilder- 
ing confusion  in  books  due  to  the  cause  here  indicated.  The 
first  is  the  date  of  the  accession  of  the  house  of  Stuart  to  the 
throne  of  Scotland  in  the  person  of  Robert  II.,  who  was  pro- 
claimed king  Feb.  22,  1371  (according  to  the  old  mode  of  reck- 
oning, 1370),  on  the  death  of  David  Bruce.  Let  us  first  open 
the  '  Encyclopaedia  of  Chronology/  Under  the  head  of  SCOT- 
LAND and  under  ROBEET  II.  we  find  the  date  correctly  stated. 
In  the  notice  of  David  Bruce,  however,  that  monarch  is  stated 
to  have  died  Feb.  22,  1370.  In  Margaret  Macarthur's  '  History 
of  Scotland,'  which  forms  part  of  Freeman's  '  Historical  Series/ 
we  likewise  find  1370.  The  same  error  appears  three  times  in 
Hermann's  t  Lexikon  der  allgemeinen  Weltgeschichte  '  (1882), 
under  BKUCE,  SCHOTTLAND,  and  STUART,  and  twice  in  '  Brock- 
haus'  Conversations-Lexikon '  (twelfth  edition),  in  the  articles 


THE    "HISTOKICAL   REFERENCE   BOOK"    475 

SCHOTTLAND  and  STUART.  '  Pierer's  Universal-Lexikon '  (last 
edition)  gives  1371  in  the  article  SCHOTTLAND  and  1370  tinder 
STUART.  The  second  case  is  the  date  of  the  institution  of  the 
Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece  by  Philip  the  Good,  duke  of  Bur- 
gundy, on  the  occasion  of  his  nuptials  with  Isabella  of  Portugal. 
The  event  took  place  in  the  town  of  Bruges  Jan.  10,  1430,  or, 
according  to  the  old  mode  of  reckoning,  1429,  the  year  having  to 
run  on  till  Easter.  We  find  the  wrong  year  1429  in  Beeck's 
'  Handlexikon  der  Geschichte  und  Biographic,'  in '  Haydn's  Dic- 
tionary of  Dates,'  in  Hermann's  '  Lexikon  der  allgemeinen 
Weltgeschichte '  (in  the  notice  of  Philip  the  Good),  and  in  the 
last  edition  of  '  Pierer's  Universal-Lexikon '  (in  the  article  on 
the  Golden  Fleece  and  in  that  on  Philip  the  Good).  The  '  En- 
cyclopaedia of  Chronology'  gives  Jan.  10,  1429  (citing  an 
authority)  under  the  head  of  GOLDEN  FLEECE,  and  in  the  notice 
of  Philip  his  marriage  is  stated  to  have  taken  place  on  that  day, 
but  under  the  head  of  BRUGES  we  are  correctly  informed  that 
the  Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece  was  instituted  in  1430. 

As  encyclopedists  are  continually  contradicting  each  other 
with  regard  to  historical  chronology,  where  sufficient  pains  and 
easy  access  to  standard  sources  of  information  ought  to  make  it 
possible  to  insure  accuracy,  it  is  natural  that  we  should  find  a 
vast  amount  of  discrepancy  with  regard  to  biographical  dates. 
In  the  preparation  of  a  great  mass  of  biographical  notices  in  a 
cyclopaedia  the  available  sources  of  information  must  of  neces- 
sity be  in  a  great  measure  restricted  to  the  articles  in  other  en- 
cyclopedic publications.  In  a  comparatively  small  proportion  of 
cases  only  is  it  practicable  to  have  recourse  to  works  of  author- 
ity in  order  to  verify  statements.  The  compiler  is  perplexed  at 
every  step,  and  very  frequently  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  more 
than  an  approximation  to  the  truth.  Biographical  chronology  is 
continually  shifting.  One  has  only  to  take  one  of  the  early 
editions  of  '  Brockhaus'  Conversations-Lexikon '  and  compare  a 
number  of  biographical  dates  with  the  statements  contained  in 
the  last  edition  to  appreciate  this  fact.  In  every  new  edition  of 
such  a  publication  the  chronology  has  to  be  amended  afresh. 
Biographical  literature  is  constantly  bringing  new  alterations, 
and  in  every  country  old  documents,  registers,  and  memorials 
are  being  brought  to  light  which  refute  more  or  less  of  what  has 


476  LOUIS   HEILPKIN 

hitherto  been  passing  for  truth.  Readers  are  little  aware  of  the 
amount  of  confusion  which  prevails  respecting  the  dates  of  birth 
and  death  of  eminent  personages  even  of  our  own  age.  In  a  not 
inconsiderable  proportion  of  cases  the  year  of  birth  is  not  actu- 
ally established  until  after  the  individual's  death.  The  bio- 
graphical notice  in  a  cyclopaedia  of  a  person  lately  deceased  will 
therefore  very  frequently  be  found  to  give  a  different  date  for 
the  birth  from  that  contained  in  the  preceding  edition  of  the 
work.  The  date  of  Buckle's  birth  is  Nov.  24,  1821.  We  find 
the  same  month  and  day,  but  the  year  1822  in  the  last  edition 
of  'Brockhaus'  Conversations-Lexikon '  (1882),  in  Bornmul- 
ler's  '  Schriftsteller-Lexikon  der  Gegenwart '  (1882),  in  Beeck's 
'  Handlexicon  der  Geschichte  und  Biographic,'  and  in  the  necrc- 
logical  list  appended  to  the  last  edition  of  '  Men  of  the  Time ' 
(1884).  The  year  1822  (without  mention  of  month  or  day)  is 
also  given  in  Thomas's  '  Dictionary  of  Biography '  and  in  the 
index  to  the  last  edition  of  '  Haydn's  Dictionary  of  Dates.'  Du 
Chaillu  was  born  July  31,  1835.  In  the  twelfth  edition  of 
'  Brockhaus'  Oonversations-Lexikon '  he  is  stated  to  have  been 
born  about  1805 ;  in  the  fourth  edition  of  Vapereau's  '  Diction- 
naire  des  contemporains/  toward  the  first  years  of  the  century ; 
in  Embacher's  '  Lexikon  der  Reisen  und  Entdeckungen '  (1882), 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  The  error  has  been  eliminated 
in  the  last  edition  of  the  first  two  works,  and  the  correct  date  is 
also  to  be  found  in  the  l  Schriftsteller-Lexikon  der  Gegenwart/ 
published  a  few  months  before  Embacher's  work.  The  eminent 
Belgian  sculptor  Willem  Geefs,  who  died  in  1883,  is  frequently 
stated  to  have  ended  his  days  in  1860.  His  biography  is  omitted 
from  the  fourth  edition  of  the  '  Dictionnaire  des  contemporains  ' 
(in  which  the  false  entry  of  his  death  occurs),  but  he  is  resus- 
citated with  a  full  notice  in  the  last  edition  (1880).  It  was  a 
brother  of  Willem  Geefs  who  died  in  1860.  Another  of  the 
celebrities  whose  career  closed  in  1883,  Abd-el-Kader,  had  his 
death  more  than  once  prematurely  chronicled." 


Ill 

LOUIS    HEILPRIN'S    VIEWS    ON  EAPID   TRANSIT 

During  the  years  that  followed  the  publication  of  his  Refer- 
ence Book  in  1884  Louis  Heilprin's  skill  as  an  encyclopaedic 
expert  was  occasionally  sought  by  publishers,  as  by  the  Put- 
nams  in  their  issue  of  Vambery's  Story  of  Hungary  and  by 
the  Century  Company  in  the  revision  of  their  Cydopcedia, 
of  Names  —  a  task  successfully  carried  out  by  Heilprin,  with 
the  assistance  of  other  members  of  the  family,  within  four 
months.  On  the  whole,  however,  his  talents  were  far  too  long 
allowed  to  slumber.  He  gave  instruction  in  languages  to  private 
pupils  and  taught  at  a  school  in  Summit  with  whose  spirit  and 
methods  he  was  in  sympathy.  An  academic  career,  for  which 
he  was  in  many  ways  admirably  fitted  and  which  the  advice 
of  influential  friends  pointed  out  to  him,  he  never  would  con- 
sider. Not  only  his  inherent  modesty,  but  an  invincible  belief 
that  his  poor  sight  would  stand  in  the  way  of  efficient  work, 
made  him  shrink  from  any  attempt  to  gain  a  footing  in  uni- 
versity or  college.  He  delivered  a  few  semi-public  lectures  on 
historical  subjects  in  Summit  and,  many  years  later,  spoke  to 
a  circle  of  friends  in  Cleveland  on  the  development  of  the  pub- 
lic means  of  transportation  —  a  subject  which,  in  his  hands, 
became  an  epitome  of  the  material  progress  of  mankind  through- 
out the  ages.  Engineering  matters  at  all  times  engaged  his 
attention.  He  wrote  timely  letters  to  the  Evening  Post  on  these 
topics,  and  on  one  occasion,  in  the  early  eighties,  when  New 
York  was  threatened  with  a  water  famine,  he  outlined  in  a 
letter  to  the  Post  a  carefully  elaborated  plan  for  husbanding  the 
existing  resources.  He  thought  much  and  wrote  not  infre- 
quently on  matters  concerning  the  public  welfare,  such  as  the 
prevention  of  railroad  collisions  and  mining  disasters.  The 


478  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

most  important  of  his  articles  relating  to  engineering  subjects, 
a  paper  on  the  Rapid  Transit  Problem,  appeared  in  the  Engi- 
neering Magazine  for  July,  1892,  and,  in  the  editor's  words, 
caused  a  sensation.  In  the  light  of  what  experience  has  proved 
as  to  the  inadequacy  of  the  solution  then  adopted,  Mr.  Heilprin's 
remarks  were  nothing  less  than  prophetic.  The  article  was  as 
follows : 

"  The  problem  of  rapid  transit  in  great  centers  of  population 
is  one  of  such  universal  interest,  and  it  is  now  pressing  for 
solution  in  so  many  cities,  that  engineers  and  business  men  the 
world  over  can  not  go  amiss  in  posting  themselves  thoroughly 
upon  the  phases  of  the  subject  now  presented  for  practical  solu- 
tion in  New  York.  Each  city  has  its  own  problem,  and  there 
are  of  course  certain  conditions  present  at  one  point  which  do 
not  exist  elsewhere.  But  it  is  everywhere  a  question  of  railways, 
high  speed  and  large  seating  capacity ;  and  hence  the  attainment 
of  these  ends  in  any  one  locality  is  very  apt  to  offer  a  solution 
of  the  problem  which  will  be,  in  the  main,  of  universal  applica- 
tion. And  in  New  York  —  the  metropolis  of  the  Western  world, 
built  upon  a  long,  narrow  island  —  the  conditions  are  so  unusual 
and  the  requirements  so  extreme,  that  what  accomplishes  the 
purpose  there  will  undoubtedly  serve  as  an  object  lesson  of  the 
greatest  possible  utility  and  value  elsewhere. 

The  opinion  is  entertained  at  present  by  the  Rapid  Transit 
Commission  of  New  York  that  the  needed  additional  means  of 
travel  will  have  been  supplied  by  the  construction  of  a  system  of 
railroads,  mainly  underground,  consisting  of  two  four-track  ar- 
teries, one  on  the  east  side  and  one  on  the  west  side  of  the  city, 
extending  from  the  vicinity  of  Union  Square  to  Harlem,  with  a 
double-track  continuation  in  the  suburban  sections,  and  of  a  main 
four-track  artery  extending  from  Union  Square  to  the  Battery. 
A  close  examination  will  show  that  this  presumption  is  not  well 
founded  and  not  likely  to  be  justified  by  events. 

Experience  has  taught  us  that  in  the  case  of  great  engineering 
enterprises  in  a  rapidly-growing  population,  the  most  generous 
provisions  for  the  demands  of  the  future  are  apt  to  prove  inade- 
quate. The  construction  of  the  present  system  of  elevated  rail- 
roads once  appeared  to  be  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  rapid 


VIEWS    ON   RAPID   TKANSIT  479 

transit  in  New  York.  Fifteen  years  ago  most  people  in  that  city 
no  doubt  felt  confident  that  two  double-track  routes  would  suf- 
fice. Four  such  roads  were  built.  Within  two  years  the  system 
had  proved  itself  to  be  a  failure  with  respect  to  meeting  the 
demands  of  the  public.  Increasing  the  frequency  of  train- 
service,  lengthening  the  trains,  introducing  more  powerful  en- 
gines —  nothing  has  availed  to  check  the  increasing  discomfort 
of  travel  or  the  diminution  in  its  rapidity.  Many  persons,  in- 
deed, are  beginning  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  roads  were 
constructed  for  the  purposes  of  rapid  transit.  For  a  portion  of 
the  day  the  average  rate  of  speed  on  Third  avenue  has  been 
reduced  to  about  ten  miles  an  hour,  although  between  many  of 
the  stations  a  speed  of  twenty-five  to  thirty  miles  an  hour  is 
maintained  for  a  few  seconds  at  a  time.  Ten  miles  an  hour  can 
hardly  be  called  rapid  transit  in  this  age  of  air-brakes,  when  on 
a  perfectly  straight  and  well-constructed  road-bed  almost  any 
degree  of  speed  is  deemed  compatible  with  safety. 

But  what  the  elevated  roads  have  failed  to  provide  is  not  rapid 
locomotion  so  much  as  means  of  traveling  like  human  beings. 
On  the  two  principal  lines  the  travel  during  the  busiest  portion 
of  the  day  is  about  double  what  can  be  carried  comfortably.  The 
seating  capacity  of  a  train  of  five  cars,  as  now  run,  is  about  250, 
while  the  full  complement  reaches  or  exceeds  500.  On  these  two 
lines  alone  eight  tracks  would  be  required  to  handle  the  present 
traffic  so  as  to  afford  sitting-room  to  every  passenger.  It  may 
here  be  asked  what  do  we  mean  by  the  present  traffic  ?  Promise 
seats  to  all  passengers,  and  the  amount  of  traffic  will  be  swelled 
by  the  many  thousands  who  now  prefer  the  accommodations  of 
the  surface  roads  to  the  crowded  trains  of  the  elevated  roads. 
At  a  low  estimate  the  traffic  of  the  latter  would  be  increased  by 
25  per  cent,  and  we  should  find  that  ten  tracks  on  Sixth  and 
Third  avenues  would  barely  suffice  for  the  exigencies  of  the 
present. 

Let  figures  speak.  We  shall  measure  transporting  capacity  by 
the  number  of  seats  that  can  be  furnished  per  hour.  With  trains 
running  on  a  single-track  road  at  intervals  of  one  minute,  each 
train  to  consist  of  five  cars  of  fifty  seats  each,  that  number  is 
15,000.  With  ten  tracks,  therefore,  we  should  be  able  to  provide 
only  75,000  through  seats  per  hour  in  one  direction.  During  the 


480  LOUIS   HEILPKQT 

four  busiest  hours  of  the  day  we  should  be  able  to  transport  In 
one  direction  no  more  than  300,000  passengers. 

This  rate  of  transportation  would  about  represent  the  demand 
that  would  now  be  made  upon  the  Sixth-  and  Third-avenue  lines 
alone  in  the  thickest  of  the  evening  crush,  were  the  ordinary 
comforts  of  travel  secured  to  the  public.  Under  present  condi- 
tions, with  a  dozen  lines  of  horse-cars  actively  competing,  it  is 
safe  to  assert  that  on  the  four  elevated  roads  taken  together  the 
rate  at  which  the  tickets  are  dropped  into  the  boxes  at  all  the 
stations  exceeds  at  the  busiest  time  of  the  day  100,000  per  hour. 
Four  elevated  tracks  each  on  Third  and  Sixth  avenues  would 
fail  to  meet  the  present  demands  of  the  traveling  public.  A  well- 
constructed  and  well-equipped  viaduct  road  along  the  line  of 
either  of  these  thoroughfares,  affording  real  rapid  transit  be- 
tween the  Battery  and  the  northern  limits  of  the  city,  could  not 
conveniently  dispose  of  the  traffic  it  would  be  called  upon  to 
handle  without  running  trains  in  one  direction  on  three  tracks 
at  least.  Ordinarily  speaking  this  would  mean  twelve  tracks 
for  the  two  Ijnes,  but  in  order  to  meet  possible  objections  we 
shall  allow  that  while  six  tracks  are  being  used  in  one  direction 
four  tracks  will  suffice  for  return  trains. 

At  this  point  it  may  be  argued  that  we  might  add  to  the  carry- 
ing capacity  of  the  roads  by  running  the  trains  at  a  higher  rate 
of  speed  than  at  present,  thereby  diminishing  the  average  dura- 
tion of  the  trips.  But  increasing  the  speed  cannot  of  itself 
add  to  the  carrying  capacity  of  a  railroad,  otherwise  than  by 
enabling  a  given  amount  of  rolling-stock  to  do  more  service  in  a 
given  time.  A  higher  rate  of  speed  does  not  by  any  means  imply 
increased  carrying  capacity.  This  will  be  determined  solely 
by  the  interval  of  time  between  successive  trains.  If  the  schedule 
provides,  for  example,  for  the  despatching  of  thirty  trains  per 
hour  on  one  line  of  rails,  then  it  will  be  immaterial  as  far  as 
carrying  capacity  is  concerned  whether  the  average  speed  is  ten 
or  forty  miles  an  hour.  In  the  former  case,  indeed,  four  times 
as  many  cars  may  be  required  as  in  the  latter,  but  if  the  supply 
of  cars  does  not  run  short,  there  will  be  no  diminution  in  the 
carrying  capacity.  The  same  number  of  trains  will  pass  any 
particular  station  within  a  given  time  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  and  the  chance  of  obtaining  a  seat  will  be  the  same.  In- 


VIEWS    ON   EAPID    TRANSIT  481 

creasing  the  speed  will  not  dimmish  the  pressure  on  the  roads. 
On  the  contrary,  it  can  be  shown  that  it  will  tend  to  increase 
it,  and  this  paradox  enters  as  a  cardinal  factor  in  the  problem 
of  rapid  transit.  Suppose  that  with  a  maximum  velocity  of 
twenty  miles  an  hour  it  is  safe  to  allow  trains  to  follow  each 
other  at  intervals  of  one  minute;  this  will  give  us,  under  ex- 
isting conditions,  15,000  seats  per  hour.  Now  suppose  it  were 
proposed  to  increase  the  maximum  speed  to  forty  miles  an  hour. 
Evidently  it  will  no  longer  be  safe  to  run  the  trains  with  a 
leeway  of  only  one  minute.  At  twenty  miles  an  hour  a  train 
can  be  brought  to  a  standstill  in  about  six  seconds,  while  at  forty 
miles  an  hour  twelve  seconds  or  more  will  be  required,  the  re- 
tarding action  of  the  brakes  not  increasing  with  the  velocity. 
In  these  twelve  seconds  the  faster  train  will  have  passed  over 
four  times  the  ground  traversed  by  the  slower  train  in  six 
seconds.  Thus,  if  the  latter  can  be  brought  to  a  standstill  in  a 
distance  of  ninety  feet,  the  former  will  (roughly  speaking)  run 
360  feet  from  the  moment  the  brakes  are  applied  until  its  mo- 
tion is  completely  arrested.  A  still  more  important  factor  in 
the  determination  of  the  minimum  interval  between  trains  is 
the  violence  of  the  shock  in  case  of  a  collision.  With  a  maximum 
of  twenty  miles  an  hour  a  serious  collision  would  be  almost  an 
impossibility.  With  forty  miles  an  hour  there  is  always  the 
possibility  of  a  great  catastrophe. 

The  minimum  interval  at  twenty  miles  an  hour  would  have  to 
be  more  than  doubled  for  forty  miles  an  hour.  It  could  hardly 
be  safe  to  allow  trains  to  succeed  each  other  at  the  latter  speed 
at  a  shorter  interval  than  two-and-a-half  minutes.  This  would 
give  us  twenty-four  trains,  or  120  cars,  per  hour,  with  a  seating 
capacity  for  through  passengers  of  only  6000.  In  the  case  of 
rapid-transit  roads  in  a  city  of  1,700,000  inhabitants,  whose 
dwellings  and  places  of  business  occupy  a  narrow  strip  fifteen 
miles  long,  and  whose  capacity  for  locomotion  far  exceeds  the 
real  carrying  capacity  of  the  existing  lines  of  communication,  an 
increase  of  velocity  in  the  transporting  apparatus  implies  an 
increased  number  of  tracks. 

If  it  be  proposed  to  run  fast  express  trains  between  the  Bat- 
tery and  Spuyten  Duyvil  on  one  side  and  between  the  Battery 
and  Fordham  on  the  other,  and  to  provide  equally  rapid  transit 


482  LOUIS   HEILPKIN 

for  all  points  above  Eighty-sixth  street,  then  our  ten  tracks  on 
the  two  principal  railroads  alone  would  soon  have  to  be  expanded 
to  twelve  or  fourteen.  Were  a  high  rate  of  speed  attempted  for 
all  classes  of  travel,  short  hauls  as  well  as  long  hauls,  even  if 
the  length  of  the  trains  were  increased  to  seven  cars  of  the  type 
now  employed,  then  ten  tracks,  all  used  in  the  same  direction, 
could  not  be  relied  upon  to  convey  more  than  about  125,000 
through  passengers  per  hour  with  comfort  and  absolute  safety. 
On  two  of  the  elevated  roads  —  on  Second  avenue  and  Ninth 
avenue  —  the  intervals  between  the  trains  could  be  reduced 
considerably  below  what  they  are  now,  but  the  former  at  least, 
even  with  much  more  frequent  trains,  could  not  do  more  than 
conveniently  accommodate  the  tide  of  travel  that  passes  over 
it  in  the  morning  and  evening  hours.  To  sum  up,  a  satisfactory 
system  of  rapid  transit  for  New  York  as  it  is  to-day  would 
require  in  place  of  the  existing  ten  tracks  (including  two  un- 
derground tracks  on  Park  avenue)  a  total  of  eighteen  to  twenty 
tracks. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  considering  the  needs  of  New  York  as 
the  city  exists  to-day.  Let  us  now  attempt  to  look  a  short  dis- 
tance into  the  future.  Within  ten  years,  at  the  present  rate  of 
increase,  about  half  a  million  people  will  have  been  added  to  the 
population  of  New  York.  With  such  improved  means  of  com- 
munication as  would  be  afforded  by  the  proposed  eight  under- 
ground tracks,  a  vast  impetus  would  be  given  to  building  opera- 
tions in  the  upper  part  of  Manhattan  Island  and  the  annexed 
district.  It  would  be  as  though  a  whole  new  city  had  been 
created.  We  cannot  be  far  from  the  truth  if  we  assume  that 
an  accession  to  the  population  of  half  a  million  souls  will  repre- 
sent an  addition  to  the  daily  number  of  rapid-transit  passengers 
of  about  200,000  or  100,000  in  each  direction.  This  figure 
would  represent  an  additional  pressure  upon  the  railroads  dur- 
ing the  busiest  part  of  the  day  of  20,000  passengers  an  hour  in 
one  direction.  As  the  capacity  of  a  transit  system  of  the  high- 
speed pattern  can  hardly  be  rated  above  10,000  per  hour  per 
track,  this  additional  pressure  would  have  to  be  met  by  three 
if  not  four  additional  tracks.  If  during  the  next  ten  years  there 
should  be  a  considerable  shifting  of  population  from  the  district 
south  of  Twenty-third  street  to  the  upper  portions  of  the  city, 


VIEWS    ON   EAPID    TRANSIT  483 

a  fresh  wave  of  travel  would  impose  an  additional  pressure  as 
great  as  a  double  set  of  rails  would  bear,  and  if  the  old  crowded 
tenement  quarters  should  begin  to  drain  northward,  still  another 
pair  would  be  required  from  this  cause  alone. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  traffic  in  general  tends  constantly  to 
swell,  irrespective  of  increase  in  population;  witness  the  con- 
stantly increasing  mass  of  non-residents  who  patronize  every 
means  of  conveyance  in  and  around  the  city.  Making  allowance 
for  this  natural  increase,  it  is  a  fair  estimate  to  make  when  we 
say  that  to  provide  satisfactorily  for  the  needs  of  New  York  in 
the  immediate  future,  a  system  of  railroad  transit  really  expe- 
ditious, convenient  and  safe,  operated  either  by  steam  or  elec- 
tricity, or  both,  ought  to  embrace  not  less  than  twenty-five  sets 
of  rails.  This  is  50  per  cent,  more  than  would  be  afforded  by 
the  existing  elevated  roads  and  the  eight  tracks  of  the  proposed 
underground  systems,  namely,  sixteen  in  all.  By  the  time  the 
projected  underground  railroads  can  be  completed,  New  York 
will  not  be  much  nearer  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  rapid 
transit  than  at  the  time  of  the  inauguration  of  overhead  trans- 
portation. There  was  a  time  when  there  was  a  charm  in  the 
term  '  double-track '  —  a  time  when  most  people  believed  that 
the  carrying  capacity  of  a  four-track  steam-road  was  prac- 
tically boundless.  There  was  a  time  when  the  idea  of  eight 
parallel  elevated  tracks,  without  crossings  or  obstructions,  im- 
plied to  every  one  the  end  of  the  discomforts  and  annoyances 
of  travel.  There  are  those  now  who  believe  that  eight  additional 
tracks  will  solve  the  problem.  To  believe  this  is  to  be  lacking 
in  perspective  and  to  ignore  the  experience  of  the  past. 

No  system  of  rapid  transit  ought  to  be  deemed  sufficient  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  immediate  future  of  New  York  (which  by 
1900  will  have  nearly  doubled  the  population  that  it  had  in 
1878,  when  the  Sixth-avenue  elevated  road  was  opened)  that 
does  not  offer  a  transporting  capacity,  combining  speed  with 
comfort,  for  about  150,000  passengers  in  one  direction  per  hour. 
The  proposed  eight  underground  tracks  will  not  permit  this 
figure  to  be  reached  unless  the  idea  of  really  rapid  locomotion  is 
abandoned  and  the  system  of  haulage,  with  respect  to  speed  and 
stops,  is  assimilated  to  that  now  existing  on  the  elevated  roads. 
But  what  New  Yorkers  are  looking  forward  to  is  real  rapid 


484  LOUIS   HEILPRDT 

transit  and  not  pseudo-rapid  transit.  If  the  means  of  locomo- 
tion are  to  be  mainly  underground  then  is  actual  rapidity  of 
transit  more  imperative  than  ever.  There  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  be  satisfied  with  the  ten  miles  an  hour  which  the  Third- 
avenue  elevated  road  affords  below  Sixty-seventh  street,  and  the 
eleven  or  twelve  miles  which  the  easier  grades  enable  the  Sixth- 
avenue  line  to  achieve  below  Fiftieth  street,  even  if  each  pas- 
senger were  sure  to  find  a  luxurious  seat  on  entering  the  car. 

We  have  been  discussing  the  projected  underground  scheme 
on  the  assumption  that  it  would  offer  eight  additional  tracks, 
thus  doubling  the  existing  capacity  for  rapid-transit  communi- 
cation. But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  scheme  provides  for  only 
four  tracks  in  that  part  of  the  city  south  of  Union  Square.  This 
idea  of  compressing  the  traffic  into  a  four-track  main  artery 
under  Broadway  for  a  distance  of  two  miles  and  a  half  (Four- 
teenth street  to  South  Ferry)  is  simply  preposterous.  Even  if 
the  scheme  provided  for  an  efficient  system  of  loops  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Union  Square,  so  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  the 
trains  might  be  cut  off  at  that  point  so  as  to  relieve  the  lower 
section,  the  feature  in  question  would  be  a  great  mistake.  But 
if  the  stream  of  traffic  conveyed  over  a  system  of  eight  tracks 
is  to  be  made  to  converge  into  four,  then  we  are  simply  crippling 
the  means  of  transportation  represented  by  that  system.  If  all 
the  trains  are  to  be  run  over  the  entire  course  we  shall  simply 
be  establishing  a  limit  of  carrying  capacity  which  will  be  de- 
termined by  the  work  which  two  lines  of  track  used  in  one 
direction  can  be  made  to  perform.  Assuming  that  the  terminal 
loops  and  switches  can  be  made  to  operate  so  efficiently  that  not 
a  moment  is  lost  in  reversing  the  direction  of  the  trains,  how 
many  seats  shall  we  be  able  to  carry  from  the  City  Hall  to 
Union  Square  in  an  hour  ?  Whatever  figure  we  shall  arrive  at 
will  measure  the  maximum  carrying  capacity  of  the  entire 
system. 

If  we  despatch  trains  at  the  rate  of  one  a  minute  on  each  of 
two  tracks,  if  each  train  consists  of  seven  cars,  and  if  each  car 
has  a  seating  capacity  of  fifty,  we  shall  obtain  a  total  maximum 
of  only  42,000  seats  per  hour.  This  would  not  be  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  rapid  transit  for  New  York.  But  is  the 
despatching  of  trains  of  the  size  in  question  at  the  rate  of  one 


VIEWS    ON   EAPID    TKANSIT  485 

a  minute  on  a  single  track  really  compatible  with  rapid  transit  ? 
Considering  the  inevitable  proximity  of  the  stations  to  each 
other  in  the  lower  part  of  the  city,  and  the  fact  that  the  trains 
in  their  northward  course  by  the  time  they  reach  Fourteenth 
street  will  have  taken  on  board  about  three-fourths  of  their  total 
complement  of  through  passengers,  there  can  be  no  exaggeration 
in  assuming  that  in  this  section  of  two  miles  and  a  half  the 
average  rate  of  speed,  including  stops,  during  the  hours  of 
greatest  traffic,  would  not  exceed  ten  miles  an  hour.  Fifteen 
minutes  would  have  to  be  consumed  between  Fourteenth  street 
and  South  Ferry.  There  could  hardly  be  any  pretense  of  run- 
ning trains  in  this  portion  of  the  route  on  '  express '  schedule, 
for  this  would  imply  an  inadmissible  lengthening  of  the  inter- 
vals between  the  trains. 

If  eight  underground  tracks  are  needed  above  Fourteenth 
street  it  is  absurd  to  imagine  that  four  will  suffice  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  distance.  But  the  idea  of  having  only  four 
tracks  for  these  two-and-a-half  miles  evidently  has  its  root  in 
the  notion  that  the  great  underground  thoroughfare  ought  to  be 
as  far  as  possible  directly  under  Broadway.  It  is  true  that  more 
than  four  parallel  tracks  cannot  very  well  be  located  on  the  same 
level  under  Broadway  without  descending  to  a  greater  depth 
than  the  Commission  considers  admissible.  But  is  there  any 
absolute  necessity  for  locating  the  underground  road  precisely 
on  the  line  of  this  thoroughfare  ?  Better  travel  in  comfort  under 
the  Bowery  or  South  Fifth  avenue  than  be  packed  like  herrings 
under  the  aesthetic  blocks  of  Broadway  buildings.  It  might  be 
well,  indeed,  for  the  east  and  west  lines  to  converge  somewhere 
in  the  vicinity  of  Union  Square  so  as  to  meet  in  a  capacious 
transfer  station,  which  should  permit  passengers  from  the  east 
side  passing  over  to  the  west  side  and  vice  versa;  but  after  thus 
meeting,  the  two  roads  ought  to  diverge  again  and  pursue  an 
independent  course  to  the  extremity  of  the  island,  from  a  quarter 
to  an  eighth  of  a  mile  on  either  side  of  Broadway. 

Another  exhibition  of  short-sightedness  is  the  opinion  that  a 
double  track  on  either  side  will  suffice  for  the  demands  of  New 
York  beyond  the  Harlem  river.  These  outlying  portions  of  the 
metropolis  to  be  brought  close  to  the  business  portions  must  be 
served  with  a  system  of  transit  embodying  a  very  high  rate  of 


486  LOUIS   HEILPRIX 

speed.  We  have  seen  that  the  capacity  of  a  double-track  road 
with  trains  run  at  express  speed  can  hardly  be  rated  higher 
than  about  6000  passengers  per  hour  in  one  direction.  Now 
if  the  region  along  the  Harlem  and  about  Spuyten  Duyvil  creek 
had  the  transit  facilities  which  it  asks  for,  by  the  time  the  dis- 
trict was  built  up  a  double-track  road  would  in  all  probability 
not  accommodate  one-third  of  the  travel,  the  condition  being 
that  speed  and  comfort  alike  shall  be  secured  to  passengers. 

Whether  or  not  the  construction  of  underground  railroads  as 
the  chief  means  of  conveyance  in  the  metropolis  be  rendered  im- 
perative by  present  and  future  conditions  —  there  are  those  who 
believe  that  the  idea  of  a  grand  system  of  overhead  communica- 
tion ought  not  yet  to  be  abandoned.  One  thing  certain  is  that 
in  spite  of  all  possible  improvements  in  the  matter  of  lighting 
and  ventilation,  the  necessity  of  underground  travel  will  be  in 
itself  nothing  short  of  a  misfortune  to  the  citizens  of  New  York. 
If  it  is  to  be  endured,  let  such  provision  at  least  be  made  that 
the  traveling  public  shall  not  have  to  face  underground  the  dis- 
comforts, delays  and  vexations  which  beset  our  present  aerial 
transportation. 

The  New  York  of  the  immediate  future  will  be  a  city  of  two 
million  inhabitants,  this  mass  of  humanity  oscillating  like  a 
pendulum  back  and  forth  once  a  day.  To  provide  for  this 
movement  in  a  satisfactory  way,  to  reduce  the  friction  within 
endurable  bounds,  the  system  of  communication  will  have  to  be 
on  a  scale  far  more  gigantic  than  our  engineers  seem  prepared 
to  contemplate." 


IV 

"THE  GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OF  THE 
CENTUKY" 

For  many  years,  though  sometimes  at  long  intervals,  Mr. 
Heilprin  contributed  to  the  Nation  and  Evening  Post  occasional 
book  reviews  and  articles  on  foreign  affairs  —  printed  as  edi- 
torials —  which  were  always  welcomed  by  the  editors.  When, 
at  the  close  of  1900,  the  Evening  Post  published  an  encyclopaedic 
account,  by  noted  writers,  of  the  achievements  of  the  century, 
Mr.  Heilprin  was  invited  to  contribute  an  article  on  "  The 
Geographical  Conquests  of  the  Century."  It  was  a  subject  with 
which  he  was  thoroughly  familiar.  As  in  the  field  of  history, 
so  in  geography  there  was  scarcely  an  important  fact  that  his 
memory  had  not  stored  up.  The  article  is  here  reprinted : 

"  The  third  century  after  the  discovery  of  America  drew  to  its 
close  with  a  veil  of  darkness  still  shrouding  half  the  globe  from 
the  eye  of  civilized  man.  A  Strabo  or  a  Ptolemy,  if  questioned 
in  1800  as  to  how  much  of  the  earth's  surface  he  could  describe 
with  accuracy,  would  have  had  to  confess  that  he  was  quite 
familiar  with  only  one  of  the  grand  divisions,  and  that  one  em- 
bracing only  a  tithe  of  the  land  of  our  planet.  He  might  per- 
haps have  claimed  that  he  could  make  a  tolerable  map  of  South 
America,  whose  interior  had  been  partly  opened  up  by  the  zeal 
of  the  Jesuit  missionaries.  It  would,  however,  have  been  full 
of  great  voids,  representing  regions  unknown  to  him.  He  would 
have  been  able  also  to  construct  a  map  of  Asia,  approximately 
reproducing  its  main  features,  but  his  outlines  would  have  been 
merely  the  frameworks  of  blurred  and  empty  pictures.  The 
Himalayas  had  not  been  measured  —  the  Andes  figuring  as  the 
highest  mountains  on  the  globe.  There  was  a  boundless  area 


488  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

within  the  Chinese  empire  untrodden  by  Europeans.  In  Asiatic 
Turkey,  Persia,  and  in  Afghanistan,  in  Turkestan,  and  the 
Pamir,  there  were  whole  regions  removed  from  the  ken  of  car- 
tographers. Scant  information  existed  regarding  Japan,  Far- 
ther India,  and  the  Malay  archipelago;  next  to  nothing  was 
known  about  Korea,  and  the  interior  of  Arabia  was  almost  a 
blank.  Australia  was  still  floating  as  a  cloud  on  the  horizon. 
Most  of  the  lands  north  of  America  had  not  yet  been  discovered, 
and  the  Antarctic  realm  had  barely  been  touched. 

The  accurate  knowledge  of  Africa  was  limited  in  the  main 
to  a  narrow  strip  along  the  coast.  As  for  the  interior,  compris- 
ing about  one-fifth  of  the  earth's  land  surface,  geographical 
learning  had  hardly  begun  to  outgrow  its  mediaeval  estate.  Car- 
tographers had  been  groping  their  way  amid  the  confused  re- 
ports of  traders,  slave-dealers,  and  missionaries.  The  feature 
of  equatorial  Africa  regarding  which  the  most  correct  conjecture 
had  obtained  for  centuries,  was  the  source  of  the  Nile,  which 
river,  in  accordance  with  the  teachings  of  Ptolemy  and  the  old 
Arab  geographers,  was  represented  on  the  maps  as  issuing  from 
some  lakes  in  the  heart  of  the  continent,  fed  by  the  Mountains 
of  the  Moon.  Geographers  knew  of  a  great  river  that  flowed 
by  Timbuktu,  the  Queen  of  the  Desert,  and  which  they  called 
the  Niger,  a  name  handed  down  from  the  time  of  the  ancients. 
It  had  long  been  supposed  that  this  stream  had  a  westerly  course 
and  that  the  Senegal  and  Gambia  formed  its  delta.  A  counter 
theory  was  that  it  flowed  eastward  to  a  large  lake,  a  view  based 
in  part  upon  vague  reports  about  Lake  Tchad.  Still  another 
theory  regarded  the  Niger  as  one  of  the  great  arms  of  the  Nile. 
The  Congo  was  known  only  in  the  last  portion  of  its  intermi- 
nable course,  although  as  far  back  as  the  seventeenth  century  the 
opinion  had  been  entertained  that  it  issued  from  the  same  quarter 
of  the  continent  as  the  Nile.  The  Sahara  remained  untrav- 
elled  by  Europeans,  except  near  its  margin,  and  the  great  lakes 
of  Africa  were  known  only  through  tradition  or  vague  report. 

In  North  America  the  region  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Pacific  and  north  of  New  Mexico  still  belonged  in  great 
part  to  the  realm  of  fancy.  We  read  in  the  first  American 
edition  of  Guthrie's  '  New  System  of  Modern  Geography ' 
(Philadelphia,  1795) :  '  In  North  America,  which  is  chiefly 


"GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OF  CENTURY"  489 

composed  of  gentle  ascents,  or  level  plains,  we  know  of  no  con- 
siderable mountains,  except  those  towards  the  Pole,  and  that 
long  ridge  which  runs  through  the  American  States,  and  which 
is  called  the  Apalachian  or  Allegany  Mountains.'  British 
America  remained  in  great  part  unexplored,  and  the  coast  of 
Alaska  had  barely  been  grazed.  There  were  whole  regions,  like 
the  Adirondack  wilderness,  included  within  the  bounds  of  the 
original  States  of  the  American  Union,  which  were  still  sealed 
to  geographers. 

Nearly  300  years  after  the  tracing  of  the  coast-line  of  Africa 
was  completed  by  the  voyages  of  the  Portuguese,  the  systematic 
exploration  of  the  interior  may  be  said  to  have  commenced  in 
IT 8 8  with  the  foundation  in  London  of  the  African  Association, 
an  event  which  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  geo- 
graphical discovery.  This  society  had  the  good  fortune  to  com- 
mand almost  at  the  start  the  services  of  the  intrepid  Scotsman, 
Mungo  Park.  Before  this,  it  is  true,  the  pioneer  of  modern 
African  exploration,  Sir  James  Bruce,  had  made  his  memorable 
journey  along  the  Blue  Nile,  and  the  ornithologist  Le  Vaillant 
had  travelled  in  the  hunting-grounds  of  South  Africa.  Just 
before  we  hear  of  Mungo  Park,  the  record  of  discovery  also 
tells  of  a  narrow  wedge  driven  towards  the  heart  of  the  conti- 
nent in  the  journey  of  Browne  from  Assuan  to  Darfur.  The 
African  Association  assumed  for  one  of  its  first  tasks  the  un- 
ravelling of  the  mystery  of  the  Niger.  The  journeys  of  Mungo 
Park  (who  perished  in  the  stream  in  1806),  of  Clapperton  and 
Denham,  and  of  Lander,  covering  together  the  period  from 
1795  to  1830,  revealed  the  course  of  the  river.  The  French, 
meanwhile,  explored  the  Senegal  and  Gambia.  At  this  time 
English  explorers  began  to  push  from  the  Guinea  coast  into 
the  warlike  kingdoms  of  Ashanti  and  Dahomey.  In  1826  the 
ill-fated  Laing,  and  in  1828  Caillie,  succeeded  in  reaching  Tim- 
buktu, that  mysterious  seat  of  Islamism  which  had  for  centuries 
fascinated  geographers. 

The  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era  in  the  annals  of  American  exploration.  The  travels  of 
Alexander  von  Humboldt  between  1799  and  1804  in  the  basins 
of  the  Orinoco  and  Magdalena,  and  in  the  Andes  and  Mexican 
Cordilleras,  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  geography  and 


490  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

natural  science.  His  work  was  taken  up  and  extended  to  other 
regions,  especially  Brazil,  by  eminent  naturalists  like  Maximil- 
ian of  Wied,  Spix,  Martius,  Auguste  de  Sainte-Hilaire,  Or- 
bigny,  and  Poppig.  These  had  worthy  successors  in  the  brothers 
Schomburgk  (British  Guiana),  Darwin  (Patagonia,  Tierra  del 
Fuego),  Ave-Lallemant  (Brazil),  Tschudi  (Andes,  Brazil), 
Castelnau  (Brazil,  Bolivia,  Peru),  and  Burmeister  (Brazil, 
Argentina). 

By  the  acquisition  of  the  Louisiana  territory  in  1803  the 
United  States  came  into  possession  of  a  boundless  domain,  in 
great  part  as  far  removed  from  the  knowledge  of  white  men  as 
the  heart  of  Africa.  An  exploring  expedition  was  immediately 
sent  into  this  terra  incognita  under  Lewis  and  Clarke,  who  pro- 
ceeded up  the  valley  of  the  Missouri,  crossed  the  divide  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  followed  the  Columbia  down  to  the  sea. 
The  explorations  of  Pike,  Long,  Bonneville,  Catlin,  Nicollet,  and 
Fremont,  the  opening  of  overland  routes  to  Utah  and  California, 
and  the  Government  survey  for  a  Pacific  railway  made  deep 
rifts  in  the  trans-Mississippi  region;  but  its  greatest  wonders 
were  to  remain  enshrouded  rmt.il  the  tide  of  colonization  had 
begun  to  sweep  over  the  whole  area.  It  was  not  until  1832  that 
the  Mississippi  River  was  traced  to  its  source  by  Schoolcraft. 

The  exploration  of  the  Arctic  regions,  in  the  hope  of  finding 
a  northern  water  route  for  the  trade  with  the  East,  had  lost 
much  of  its  fascination  by  the  eighteenth  century.  Russia  alone 
prosecuted  it  systematically  in  the  course  of  that  century,  ac- 
complishing a  great  work  in  tracing  the  coast  line  of  Siberia. 
About  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  idea  of  a 
Northwest  Passage  was  revived  in  England,  and  the  dream  of 
reaching  the  Pole  began  to  be  entertained.  A  great  and  per- 
sistent onslaught  upon  the  frozen  North  was  inaugurated  in 
1818.  The  labyrinth  of  islands,  peninsulas,  and  ice-bound  pas- 
sages north  of  the  American  continent  yielded  up  its  intricacies 
to  the  assaults  of  Parry,  the  two  Rosses,  Sir  John  Franklin  (to 
whose  tragic  end  Arctic  discovery  owed  much  of  its  rapid 
progress),  McClure,  Kane,  McClintock,  and  Hayes.  The  ex- 
ploration of  Arctic  British  America  was  prosecuted  on  land 
with  heroic  energy  by  Franklin,  Back,  Richardson,  Beechey, 
Dease,  Simpson,  and  Rae.  Parry,  in  an  attempt  to  reach  the 


"GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OF  CENTURY"  491 

Pole  in  1827,  dragged  his  sledges  over  the  floating  ice-fields  to 
the  parallel  of  82  degrees  45  minutes,  eclipsing  all  previous 
records  by  more  than  a  degree  of  latitude.  In  1831  James 
Clark  Ross  solved  the  mystery  of  the  position  of  the  north 
magnetic  pole,  which  he  located  in  the  peninsula  of  Boothia. 
McClure  entered  the  Arctic  Ocean  through  Bering  Strait  in 
1850,  proceeded  eastward,  was  beset  for  years  in  the  ice,  joined 
hands  in  1854  with  an  expedition  which  had  come  in  the  op- 
posite direction,  and  thus  carried  off  the  laurels  of  the  North- 
west Passage.  While  a  great  breach  was  being  made  in  the 
Arctic  fastnesses,  Bellingshausen,  Weddell,  Dumont  d'Urville, 
Sir  J.  C.  Ross,  Wilkes,  and  others  extended  geographical  dis- 
covery into  the  Antarctic  regions.  Ro?s  discovered  Victoria 
Land,  with  its  active  volcanoes,  and  in  1842  advanced  beyond 
the  seventy-eighth  parallel.  During  this  same  period  the  cruel 
depths  of  Australia,  whose  coast  had  been  explored  by  Flinders 
in  1801-3,  were  invaded  by  Sturt,  Eyre,  and  the  ill-fated 
Leichhardt. 

A  flood  of  light  was  thrown  upon  the  geography  of  northern 
and  central  Asia  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  by 
the  journeys  of  Ermann,  Humboldt,  Middendorf,  Hue  (who 
entered  Lhassa,  the  holy  city  of  Tibet),  and  others;  while  men 
like  Webb,  Moorcroft,  and  Wood  scaled  the  heights  of  the 
Himalayas  and  the  Pamir,  and  reached  the  head  streams  of  the 
Indus,  Ganges,  and  Amu  Daria.  From  1848  Mt.  Everest,  with 
the  29,002  feet  given  to  it  by  the  trigonometrical  measurement 
of  Sir  Andrew  Waugh,  figured  as  the  highest  point  on  the  globe. 
Among  the  naturalists  who  were  attracted  to  the  Himalayas, 
the  name  of  the  botanist  Hooker  stands  preeminent.  The  most 
distinguished  traveller  in  southwestern  Asia  in  the  early  part  of 
the  century  was  Burckhardt,  who  succeeded  in  entering  the 
holy  places  of  Mecca  and  Medina.  In  1829  Ararat  was  as- 
cended by  Parrot.  In  1832-3  Alexander  Burns  performed  his 
famous  ride  from  India  to  Bokhara.  The  travels  of  Crawfurd 
and  MacLeod  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  century  dispelled  in 
part  the  obscurity  hanging  over  Farther  India.  Between  1835 
and  1849  the  naturalist  Junghuhn  explored  Java  and  parts  of 
Sumatra.  Among  his  successors  in  the  Malay  Archipelago  were 
St.  John  and  Wallace. 


492  LOUIS    HEILPRIN 

Down  to  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution  Europe  had  hardly 
dared  to  cast  a  covetous  eye  upon  the  interior  of  Africa.  Por- 
tugal, England,  and  France  held  sway  at  a  few  stations  along 
the  coast.  The  sturdy  Boers,  near  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
alone  represented  actual  colonization  by  Europeans.  The  Revo- 
lution brought  in  its  train  Bonaparte's  conquest  of  Egypt,  the 
first  great  onslaught  upon  African  territory  on  the  part  of 
Christendom  in  modern  times.  The  consequences  of  the  French 
domination,  brief  as  it  was,  were  far-reaching  in  the  loosening 
of  Turkey's  hold  upon  that  country.  Another  result  of  the  wars 
of  the  Revolution  was  the  supplanting  of  Dutch  dominion  at 
the  Cape  by  that  of  England.  An  army  of  ardent  missionaries 
now  made  their  way  into  the  interior  of  South  Africa.  While 
England  was  laying  the  foundations  of  an  empire  at  this  end 
of  Africa,  France  suddenly  invaded  the  North  and  conquered 
Algeria  (1830—48).  A  few  years  before  this  invasion  Mehemet 
Ali,  Viceroy  of  Egypt,  brought  Nubia  and  Kordofan  under  his 
sway.  This  ambitious  potentate,  who,  for  the  first  time  since 
the  days  of  Saladin,  made  the  aggressive  power  of  Africa  felt 
in  another  continent,  in  his  role  of  modernizer  of  Egypt,  sent 
various  scientific  expeditions  to  explore  the  Nile,  which  was 
now  traced  almost  to  the  equator.  To  this  period  of  African 
exploration  belong  the  travels  of  Riippell,  the  brothers  Abbadie, 
Beke,  and  Krapf  in  Abyssinia. 

With  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  commences  an 
extraordinary  era  in  the  history  of  geographical  discovery.  The 
world  begins  to  close  in  upon  the  dark  interior  of  Africa,  which 
is  assailed  on  every  side,  and  in  the  course  of  a  generation  the 
great  features  of  the  continent  are  unfolded  almost  in  their  en- 
tirety. In  1847  the  German  missionaries  Krapf  and  Rebmann 
discovered  the  snow-capped  peaks  of  Kilimanjaro  and  Kenia, 
near  the  equator.  In  1849  Livingstone  discovered  Lake  Ngami, 
in  the  heart  of  South  Africa,  at  a  distance  of  a  thousand  miles 
from  Cape  Town.  In  the  course  of  the  next  seven  years  he 
extended  his  explorations  to  the  upper  Zambesi,  of  which  mighty 
stream  hardly  anything  had  hitherto  been  known,  followed  it 
up,  struck  out  westward  along  the  edge  of  the  Congo  basin  (a 
circumstance  unknown  to  him) ,  made  his  way  to  the  Portuguese 
possessions  on  the  Atlantic,  then,  turning  back,  followed  the 


"GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OF  CENTURY"  493 

Zambesi  down  stream,  discovered  the  Victoria  Falls,  the  rival 
of  Niagara,  and  reached  the  shores  of  the  Indian  Ocean.  While 
Livingstone  was  drawing  a  luminous  trail  across  South  Africa 
from  sea  to  sea,  Heinrich  Earth  was  lifting  the  veil  from  the 
depths  of  the  continent  on  the  other  side  of  the  equator  by  his 
extraordinary  journeys  in  the  western  half  of  the  Sudan.  In 
the  sixth  and  seventh  decades  of  the  century  large  accessions 
were  made  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Nile  basin  and  the  surround- 
ing regions,  including  Abyssinia,  by  the  travels  of  Petherick 
(who  explored  the  basin  of  the  Bahr-el-Gazal),  Munzinger, 
Beurmann,  Heuglin,  and  others.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  French 
were  pushing  into  West  Africa  on  the  side  of  Senegambia,  Du 
Chaillu  travelled  in  the  country  back  of  the  Gabun  and  through 
the  wilds  of  the  Ogowe,  the  home  of  the  gorilla  and  the  pygmy 
Obongo;  Burton  scaled  the  Peak  of  Kamerun,  and  Von  der 
Decken  explored  what  is  now  British  East  Africa. 

Just  as  Barth  was  emerging  from  the  scorching  suns  of  Cen- 
tral Africa,  laden  with  the  knowledge  of  countless  peoples,  in 
another  continent  three  equally  intrepid  Germans  proceeded  to 
explore  the  most  elevated  region  of  the  globe.  The  brothers 
Schlagintweit  crossed  the  Himalayas  and  the  Karakorum,  trav- 
ersed the  lofty  plateau  of  Tibet,  and  surmounted  the  Kuenlun, 
reaching  heights  to  which  no  traveller  had  ever  climbed. 

Soon  after  Livingstone's  traverse  of  South  Africa  the  begin- 
ning was  made  of  those  discoveries  which  unravelled  the  most 
interesting  problem  presented  by  the  geography  of  that  continent. 
In  1858  Burton  and  Speke,  dispatched  by  the  Royal  Geographi- 
cal Society,  in  quest  of  a  great  reservoir  of  fresh  water  which  was 
believed  to  exist  somewhere  in  the  region  whence  the  Nile  issued, 
discovered  Lake  Tanganyika.  Before  the  close  of  that  year 
Speke  discovered  a  still  larger  lake,  the  Ukerewe,  or  Victoria 
N'yanza,  which  he  assumed  to  be  a  reservoir  of  the  Nile,  al- 
though as  yet  its  outlet  remained  to  be  found.  To  what  river 
system,  if  any,  Lake  Tanganyika  belonged  was  a  problem  which 
was  to  wait  still  many  years  for  a  final  solution.  In  1859  Liv- 
ingstone came  to  the  shores  of  a  third  great  lake,  the  Nyassa,  a 
feeder  of  the  Zambesi.  Within  the  next  five  years  the  question 
of  the  sources  of  the  Nile  was  approximately  settled  by  the  explo- 
rations of  Speke,  Grant,  and  Baker.  The  last-named,  ascending 


494  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

the  river  from  Egypt,  in  1864,  discovered  the  lowest  of  the  Nile 
reservoirs,  the  Mwutan  Nzige,  or  Albert  N'yanza.  What  Ptol- 
emy had  laid  down  on  his  famous  map  1,700  years  before  was 
found  to  be  substantially  correct,  and  the  discovery  later  on  of 
snow-clad  mountains  near  the  Albert  N'yanza,  culminating  in 
Ruwenzori,  substantiated  what  the  Greek  had  taught  regarding 
the  Mountains  of  the  Moon. 

The  problem  of  the  Nile  was  closely  interwoven  with  that  of 
the  Congo,  the  greatest  mystery  that  still  confronted  geographers 
outside  of  those  presented  by  the  polar  regions.  The  Nile  ques- 
tion, indeed,  could  not  be  regarded  as  completely  settled  until 
the  watershed  between  the  two  rivers  had  been  determined.  Of 
the  Congo  basin,  equal  in  extent  to  that  of  the  Mississippi,  but 
a  mere  fraction  was  known  to  the  world.  A  boundless  maze  of 
tropical  forests  and  rivers  had  thus  far  escaped  the  eye  of  Euro- 
peans. Geographers  were  not  even  agreed  as  to  whether  the 
Congo  issued  from  the  heart  of  the  continent,  or  whether  it  was 
not  rather  in  the  nature  of  a  coast  river.  Livingstone  applied 
himself  with  heroic  resolution  to  the  task  of  ascertaining  the 
parting  of  the  waters  that  found  their  way  to  the  Mediterra- 
nean and  those  that  flowed  toward  the  Atlantic.  In  1867-8  he 
discovered  the  Luapula,  the  eastern  head-stream  of  the  Congo, 
and  its  two  large  reservoirs,  Mweru  and  Bangweolo,  and  in  1871 
stood  on  the  banks  of  the  great  river  that  hurries  past  Nyangwe, 
but  not  possessed  of  the  information  that  would  assure  him  be- 
yond doubt  that  it  could  be  no  other  than  the  Congo. 

During  these  years  wide  explorations  were  made  in  Central 
Africa,  north  of  the  equator,  by  Rohlfs,  Nachtigal,  and  Schwein- 
furth.  Nachtigal,  a  worthy  successor  of  Heinrich  Earth,  suc- 
ceeded in  making  his  way  into  Wadai,  a  Mohammedan  state  in 
the  Sudan,  a  goal  the  pursuit  of  which  had  cost  the  lives  of 
two  eminent  explorers,  Vogel  (1856)  and  Buermann  (1863). 
Schweinfurth  penetrated  into  the  cannibal  regions  west  of  the 
equatorial  Nile,  and  in  1871  came  to  the  Welle,  whose  westward 
course  convinced  him  that  he  had  travelled  beyond  the  bounds 
of  the  Nile  basin. 

These  journeys  were  coincident  with  a  remarkable  epoch  in 
the  geographical  annals  of  America.  The  explorations  of  Ball 
revealed  the  extent  of  the  Yukon ;  the  mountain  systems  of  the 


"GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OE  CENTURY"  495 

West  were  explored  by  Wheeler,  Whitney,  and  Hayden ;  Powell 
discovered  the  grand  canon  of  the  Colorado;  Washburne  and 
Hayden  made  known  the  marvels  of  the  Yellowstone.  The 
knowledge  of  British  America  was  at  this  time  greatly  extended 
by  the  travels  of  Bell,  Selwyn,  Dawson,  and  others.  Simultane- 
ously with  the  exploration  of  the  mountains  of  North  America, 
the  geological  structure  of  the  Andes  was  laid  bare  by  Eeiss  and 
Stiibel  who  ascended  the  volcano  of  Cotopaxi  to  its  summit. 

While  the  rest  of  the  world  was  engaged  in  prying  open  the 
recesses  of  the  continents,  the  Russians  were  displaying  extraor- 
dinary activity  in  the  exploration  of  their  vast  Asiatic  domain 
and  the  regions  bordering  on  it.  In  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the 
reign  of  Alexander  II.,  Semyenov,  Valikhanov  Radlov,  Osten- 
sacken,  Syevertsov,  Eedtchenko,  and  Kaulbars  assailed  that 
mighty  mountain  barrier,  composed  of  the  Altai,  Alatau,  Tian- 
Shan,  Alai  Tagh,  and  the  Pamir,  which  shuts  off  the  elevated 
desert  region  of  central  Asia  from  the  plains  of  western  Turkes- 
tan and  Siberia.  During  the  same  period  Shishmarev,  Mattus- 
sovski,  and  Pavlinov  penetrated  into  Mongolia,  and  Palladius 
into  Manchuria.  The  Russian  advance  into  the  central  Asiatic 
highlands  met  with  a  prompt  response  from  beyond  the  Hima- 
layas, whence  Hayward,  Shaw,  and  Eorsyth  pushed  into  eastern 
Turkestan,  while  the  pundit  Nain  Singh  made  a  memorable 
traverse  of  Tibet. 

When  Japan  and  China,  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  opened  their  portals  to  the  world,  the  work  of  ex- 
ploration previously  inaugurated  by  dauntless  missionaries  and 
naturalists,  proceeded  with  a  new  impetus.  Great  journeys  were 
made  in  China  by  Blakiston,  Pumpelly,  Ney  Elias,  Bastian, 
Cooper,  and  Richthofen,  who  belongs  to  the  foremost  rank  of 
Asiatic  explorers.  In  the  decade  beginning  with  1861  explora- 
tions were  made  in  the  Caucasus  by  Radde,  in  northern  Arabia 
by  Palgrave,  and  in  Turkestan  by  Vambery,  and  Lagree  and 
Gamier  traced  the  course  of  the  Mekong  as  far  up  as  the  Chinese 
province  of  Yunnan.  Contemporaneous  with  these  travels  were 
the  remarkable  journeys  performed  in  Australia  by  Burke  and 
Wills,  MacKinlay,  Stuart,  and  Forrest,  whose  exploits  were  emu- 
lated by  Giles  and  Warburton. 

The  year  1871  is  memorable  in  the  history  of  geographical 


496  LOUIS   HEILPEIN 

discovery  for  the  dramatic  episode  of  the  finding  of  Livingstone 
by  Stanley.  The  meeting  by  the  waters  of  Tanganyika  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  exploration  of  the  northern  end  of  the  lake,  which 
was  found  to  have  no  outlet  in  that  direction.  Livingstone  then 
returned  to  the  scene  of  his  recent  labors,  the  Luapula-Lualaba 
basin.  On  May  1,  1873,  he  expired  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Bang- 
weolo,  which  he  had  discovered,  and  which  he  had  become  con- 
vinced belonged  to  the  Congo  system.  In  1874  Cameron 
discovered  that  Lake  Tanganyika  was  connected  by  an  outlet, 
the  sluggish  Lukuga,  with  the  river  formed  by  the  Lualaba  and 
Luapula.  This  river  (which  Livingstone  had  reached  in  1871  at 
Nyangwe)  was  found  by  Cameron  to  flow  at  too  low  a  level  to  ad- 
mit of  its  belonging  to  the  Nile  system.  This  fearless  traveller 
was  prevented  by  the  hostility  of  the  natives  from  descending 
the  stream  and  verifying  his  belief  that  it  was  the  Congo.  It 
was  reserved  for  the  dauntless  spirit  of  Stanley  to  bring  the 
mightiest  of  African  rivers  within  the  ken  of  mankind.  In  No- 
vember, 1876,  he  embarked  at  Nyangwe  in  a  fleet  of  canoes,  and, 
performing  an  unprecedented  voyage,  which  twice  carried  him 
across  the  equator,  he  reached  the  tides  of  the  Atlantic  in 
August,  1877.  And  now  came  the  great  task  of  exploring  the 
Congo  tributaries,  which  enlisted  the  energies  of  Stanley, 
Capello  and  Ivens,  Buchner,  Pogge,  Wissmann,  Grenf ell,  Wolf, 
Bruckner,  and  Van  Gele. 

While  the  veil  was  being  lifted  in  this  quarter,  new  light  was 
thrown  upon  the  regions  west  of  the  upper  Nile  by  the  travels 
of  Junker,  Casat,  Gessi,  and  Lupton,  the  country  between  the 
Ukerewe  and  the  coast  was  opened  up  by  Fischer,  Thomson, 
and  Johnston,  the  naturalist  Emil  Holub  travelled  in  the  Zam- 
besi region,  and  the  explorations  of  Brazza  between  the  Ogowe 
and  the  Congo  laid  the  foundations  of  a  new  French  colony. 
Between  1878  and  1881  Serpa  Pinto  made  his  traverse  of 
South  Africa,  Oskar  Lenz  performed  a  journey  from  Tangier  to 
Timbuktu  and  thence  to  the  Senegal,  and  Matteuci  crossed  from 
Egypt  to  the  Gulf  of  Guinea.  At  this  time  began  the  extraor- 
dinary career  of  Emin  Bey  (Edward  Schnitzer),  administra- 
tor, explorer,  naturalist,  and  linguist,  in  the  region  of  the  equa- 
torial Nile.  This  heroic  commander,  the  peer  of  the  great 
Gordon,  was  cut  off  for  years  from  the  world  by  the  Mahdist 


"GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OF  CENTURY"  497 

uprising,  until  at  last  Stanley  succeeded  in  reaching  him  by 
way  of  the  Congo  and  Aruwimu,  an  exploit  which  recalled  the 
days  of  the  Conquistador es.  In  1887  the  Kudolf  Lake  was  dis- 
covered by  Teleki.  In  1889  Meyer  reached  the  summit  of 
Kilimanjaro. 

During  the  years  which  revealed  the  sources  of  Africa's 
greatest  rivers  the  exploration  of  the  mighty  tributaries  of  the 
Amazon  was  prosecuted  by  Chandless.  A  little  later  Crevaux 
won  laurels  in  the  same  field,  and  to  him  succeeded  Karl  von 
den  Steinen  and  Ehrenreich. 

The  decade  which  witnessed  the  solution  of  the  Congo  prob- 
lem, the  last  great  mystery  that  had  remained  hanging  over  the 
equatorial  zone,  was  marked  by  renewed  activity  in  Arctic  re- 
search. The  passage  leading  north  from  Baffin  Bay,  beginning 
with  Smith  Sound,  appeared  to  promise  access  to  an  open  polar 
sea,  the  theory  of  whose  existence  had  been  put  forth  by  Kane. 
The  American  expedition  under  Capt.  Hall  in  1871  proceeded 
up  this  channel,  and  the  splendidly  equipped  British  expedition 
under  Sir  George  Nares  in  1875  followed  in  its  wake;  but 
Kane's  theory  was  not  verified.  Some  of  Nares's  men  in  1876 
reached  the  parallel  of  83  degrees  20  minutes,  eclipsing  Parry's 
record  by  more  than  half  a  degree.  Lieut.  Lockwood  of  the 
ill-starred  Greely  scientific  mission  in  1883  made  a  farther  gain 
of  four  minutes.  In  1873  the  Austrian  expedition  of  Wey- 
precht  and  Payer  discovered  Franz- Josef  Land.  In  1878-9 
Nordenskiold  immortalized  himself  by  accomplishing  the 
Northeast  Passage. 

While  Stanley  and  his  successors  were  opening  up  the  ex- 
uberant forest  realm  of  equatorial  Africa,  the  arid  expanse  of 
central  Asia,  stretching  from  the  Pamir  on  the  west  to  the 
highlands  of  Manchuria  on  the  east,  and  embracing  the  desert 
of  Gobi  (Shamo),  the  Tarim  basin,  with  the  Takla  Makan 
desert,  and  the  ranges  of  the  Tian-Shan,  Kuenlun,  Altyn  Tagh, 
and  Nan-Shan,  was  attracting  the  most  intrepid  explorers  from 
all  parts  of  the  world.  This  illustrious  roll  includes  the  great 
Przhevalski  (whose  name  is  borne  by  the  former  town  of  Ka- 
rakol,  in  Turlcestan,  where  he  died  in  1888)  ;  Sosnovski,  Mush- 
ketov,  Kostyenko,  Potanin,  Kegel,  the  pundit  Krishna  (who 
removed  the  long-existing  doubt  regarding  the  identity  of  the 


498  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

Sanpo  and  Brahmaputra),  Pyevtsov,  Bell,  Bogdanovitch,  Ro- 
borovski,  Carey,  the  brothers  Grum-Grzhimailo,  Rockhill, 
Younghusband,  Bonvalot,  and  Henry  of  Orleans.  These  had 
distinguished  successors  in  the  last  decade  of  the  century  in 
Dutreuil  de  Rhins  (murdered  by  the  Tibetans  in  1894),  Little- 
dale,  the  young  Swedish  geologist  Sven  Hedin,  Obrutchev,  Fut- 
terer,  Holderer,  and  Deasy.  Among  the  host  of  ardent  ex- 
plorers who  have  travelled  in  China  since  1875  are  Sosnovski, 
Baber,  Gill,  Szechenyi  (son  of  the  great  Hungarian  patriot, 
Count  Stephen  Szechenyi),  Kreitner,  Easton,  Hosie,  Colqu- 
houn,  Henry,  and  Younghusband.  It  is  only  since  1880  that 
the  geography  of  Korea  has  emerged  from  its  obscurity. 

In  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  dimensions 
of  the  unknown  in  Alaska,  the  Northwest  Territories,  and  Lab- 
rador were  vastly  reduced  by  the  explorations  of  Muir,  Allen, 
Schwatka,  Dawson,  Ogilvie,  Russell,  Low,  and  others.  In  1888 
the  first  crossing  of  Greenland's  great  ice-cap  (in  its  southern 
part)  was  accomplished  by  Nansen.  In  1892  Peary  and  Astrup 
made  a  sledge  journey  of  more  than  a  thousand  miles  over  the 
northern  end,  and  determined  the  extension  of  the  island  in 
that  direction.  In  1893-5  the  gap  between  the  North  Pole  and 
the  highest  latitude  ever  before  reached  (Lockwood's  83  degrees 
24  minutes  in  1883)  was  bridged  almost  half  over  by  Nansen's 
drift  voyage  and  sledge  journey,  which  carried  him  to  the 
parallel  of  86  degrees  14  minutes.  This  record  was  eclipsed  in 
1900  by  the  expedition  of  the  Duke  of  the  Abruzzi,  which 
reached  86  degrees  33  minutes.  The  results  of  these  expedi- 
tions render  it  improbable  that  any  extensive  land-mass  remains 
undiscovered  within  the  Arctic  Circle.  As  the  physical  condi- 
tions prevailing  at  the  North  Pole  cannot  be  materially  different 
from  those  observed  in  the  near  vicinity,  the  reaching  of  the 
pole  itself  may  now  be  regarded  as  a  goal  belonging  to  the  realm 
of  adventure  rather  than  to  that  of  scientific  discovery. 

In  the  same  year  in  which  Peary  and  Astrup  crossed  the 
fathomless  ice-cap  of  Greenland  the  gigantic  glaciers  of  the 
Karakorum  were  explored  by  Sir  William  Martin  Conway, 
who  climbed  to  an  elevation  of  about  23,000  feet,  eclipsing  the 
record  of  all  former  travellers.  In  1897  Aconcagua,  probably 
the  loftiest  peak  of  the  Andes,  was  scaled  to  its  summit  b£  Zur- 


"GEOGKAPHICAL  CONQUESTS  OF  CENTURY"  499 

briggen,  the  Swiss  guide,  and  Vines,  the  geologist  of  Fitz- 
gerald's expedition,  the  elevation  obtained  for  it  by  barometric 
measurement  being  23,080  feet.  In  1898  Conway  accomplished 
the  ascent  of  Illimani,  one  of  the  rivals  of  Aconcagua. 

At  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  attention  of  the 
world  was  once  more  turned,  after  a  long  interval,  to  the  Ant- 
arctic regions.  The  British  expedition  under  Borchgrevink 
succeeded  in  locating  the  south  magnetic  pole,  and  attained  to 
the  parallel  of  78  degrees  50  minutes,  surpassing  by  40  minutes 
the  '  farthest  south '  achieved  by  Ross  in  1842.  Within  the 
Antarctic  Circle  remains  by  far  the  greatest  unknown  area  on 
the  globe.  Outside  the  polar  realms  the  physical  map  of  our 
planet,  barring  minor  details,  is  nearly  complete.  When  the 
nineteenth  century  opened  geographical  science  had  half  a  world 
to  conquer.  At  its  close  this  conquest  may  be  said  to  be  well- 
nigh  achieved." 


THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT 

At  the  inception  of  the  New  International  Encyclopedia  the 
publishers  naturally  turned  to  Mr.  Heilprin  for  active  coop- 
eration in  the  undertaking.  When  a  friend  of  his,  hearing  that 
President  Gilman,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  was  to  be 
editor-in-chief  of  the  work,  suggested  to  him  that  he  advise  the 
publishers  to  secure  the  services  of  Louis  Heilprin  as  general 
reviser,  and  impress  it  upon  them  that  there  was  no  man  in  the 
world  equal  to  him  in  this  capacity,  Mr.  Gilman  replied,  "  I 
have  already  written  them  all  that,  and  more." 

From  the  first  Mr.  Heilprin  was  entrusted  with  the  revision 
of  all  the  articles  in  proof,  and  he  brought  to  his  task  the  re- 
sources of  a  mind  trained,  as  few  ever  were,  for  the  harmonizing 
or  correcting  of  statements  covering  so  many  fields  of  human 
activity.  As  before,  various  members  of  the  family  shared  in 
Mr.  Heilprin's  labors,  and  perhaps  only  they  can  fully  appre- 
ciate the  magnitude  of  his  performance.  Of  his  tasks  the  veri- 
fication of  historical,  geographical,  and  biographical  data  and 
the  unification  of  the  system  of  transliterating  foreign  names 
formed  but  a  small  part.  His  sensitive  ear,  aided  by  his  mar- 
vellous memory,  caught  in  any  and  every  field  of  knowledge, 
as  the  proofs  were  being  read  to  him,  the  slightest  flaw  in  logic, 
the  most  deeply  hidden  contradiction  between  one  writer  and 
another.  If  in  some  article  there  occurred  the  statement  that 
horses  were  used  in  Chaldea  and  Egypt  for  draught  and  riding, 
he  remembered  at  once  a  confirmatory  or,  as  the  case  may  be, 
contradictory  statement  in  a  previous  article  under  a  different 
heading.  If  the  article  was  one  on  "  Savings  Banks,"  or  "  Agri- 
culture," the  figures  given  under  the  New  England  States  did 
not  pass  muster  until  he  had  cleared  up  the  discrepancy  be- 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  501 

tween  them  and  the  corresponding  statements  (present  to  his 
mind)  under  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  etc.  Such  sub- 
jects as  steam-engine  or  navigation  found  him  in  his  element. 
There  was  incessant  comparison  back  and  forth,  and  not  seldom 
did  he  reconcile  conflicting  statements  that  emanated  from  au- 
thorities of  the  highest  professional  standing.  Even  articles  on 
subjects  with  which  he  was  but  little  acquainted,  relating,  per- 
haps, to  medicine,  the  drama,  or  music,  would  unexpectedly 
disclose  inconsistencies  or  historical  lapses  that  but  for  him 
might  have  remained  undetected. 

The  nature  of  his  work  on  Lippincott's  Gazetteer,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  brother,  was  no  less  exacting.  It  was  for  him 
not  merely  a  question  of  writing  and  rewriting.  His  memory 
was  ever  on  the  alert  for  changes  that  were  going  on  while  the 
proofsheets  were  passing  through  his  hands.  Minnesota  was 
outstripping  Michigan  in  the  output  of  iron,  Germany  eclipsing 
Great  Britain  in  this  or  that  industry,  Ontario  establishing  a 
new  record  in  the  supply  of  nickel ;  a  new  lieutenant-governor- 
ship was  created  in  the  British  possessions  of  Eastern  Bengal ; 
the  Jungfrau  railroad  was  approaching  completion  —  all  these 
and  a  thousand  other  new  facts  had  to  be  thought  of,  and  none 
escaped  his  vigilance.  Needless  to  say  that  his  brother  Angelo, 
gifted  with  a  scarcely  less  encyclopaedic  memory,  shared  equally 
in  these  labors. 

Louis  Heilprin  has  himself,  however  reluctantly,  placed  on 
record  the  clearest  evidence  of  his  encyclopaedic  knowledge,  his 
sense  of  proportion,  and  his  judgment  of  essentials,  as  opposed 
to  the  relatively  unimportant,  in  three  remarkable  articles  on  the 
new  edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  which  appeared  in 
the  Evening  Post  and  the  Nation.  They  were  written  while  he 
was  in  the  grip  of  a  cruel  and  incurable  disease,  which  con- 
stantly racked  his  frame.  The  articles  were  as  follows: 


THE  NEW  BRITANNICA 
I 

Never  has  the  appearance  of  an  encyclopaedia,  or  indeed  of 
any  literary  production,  been  heralded  in  the  way  in  which  the 


502  LOUIS   HEILPKIK 

new  Britannica1  has  been  announced  in  the  United  States. 
The  American  public  has  been  overwhelmed  with  prospectuses 
and  advertisements  the  style  and  manner  of  which  have  not  in- 
variably reflected  credit  on  the  University  of  Cambridge,  under 
the  name  of  whose  press  the  eleventh  edition  of  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica  issues.  A  work  has  been  promised  incom- 
parably superior  to  the  old  Britannica,  one  that  would  constitute 
a  storehouse  of  the  world's  knowledge  and  a  record  of  human 
achievement  altogether  unique.  We  have  before  us  fourteen 
volumes  out  of  the  total  number  of  twenty-eight  (exclusive  of 
the  index  volume),  and  a  cursory  examination  shows  that  the 
new  Britannica  bears  out  the  claims  made  for  it  by  the  pub- 
lishers. They  have  produced  a  work  of  transcendent  merit, 
one  unapproached  by  any  similar  publication. 

The  last  regular  edition,  the  ninth,  published  by  the  Blacks 
of  Edinburgh,  appeared  in  twenty-four  volumes,  in  the  years 
1875-88.  The  tenth  edition,  so-called,  got  up  by  the  London 
Times,  was  made  up  of  the  ninth  edition  (unaltered)  and  eleven 
supplementary  volumes.  In  discussing  the  merits  of  the  pres- 
ent publication,  we  shall  make  comparisons  with  the  ninth  edi- 
tion, ignoring  the  Times' s  supplement,  which,  to  use  the  expres- 
sion of  Hugh  Chisholm,  the  editor-in-chief  of  the  work  before 
us,  was  merely  a  "  stop-gap."  The  lapse  of  three  decades  and 
a  half  between  the  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  an  encyclo- 
paedia representing  such  a  profitable  undertaking  as  the  Britan- 
nica and  the  appearance  of  a  strictly  new  edition,  argued  a  lack 
of  enterprise  and  of  regard  for  the  fitness  of  things  that  was 
quite  inexplicable.  The  publication  of  a  greatly  enlarged  edi- 
tion in  such  a  way  that  the  whole  set  could  be  brought  out  vir- 
tually at  one  issue  without  any  portion  being  seriously  anti- 
quated, is  a  unique  achievement  in  the  history  of  the  book-pub- 
lishing business.  The  long  delay  that  was  interposed  will  inure 
to  the  benefit  of  the  present  generation  of  readers,  which  gets  an 
encyclopaedia  entirely  made  over  instead  of  one  partly  renovated. 
The  way  in  which  the  Britannica  at  the  very  high-tide  of  suc- 
cess was  allowed  to  become  thoroughly  antiquated  is  not  the  only 

1  The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica :  A  Dictionary  of  Arts,  Sciences,  Literature, 
and  General  Information.  Eleventh  edition.  Vols.  I-XIV.  New  York: 
Cambridge  University  Press. 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  503 

curious  episode  of  the  kind  in  the  recent  history  of  encyclo- 
paedia-making. Equally  inexplicable  was  the  failure  to  keep  up 
the  American  Cyclopaedia  (Appleton's),  a  work  that  had  de- 
servedly become  a  household  treasure  throughout  the  land.  It 
is  inconceivable  how  a  publication  so  firmly  established  in  the 
esteem  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  and  capable  of  being 
reconstructed  into  an  encyclopaedia  that  would  have  been  looked 
upon  as  a  sort  of  national  institution,  almost  like  the  Britannica, 
should  have  been  thrown  overboard  for  a  successor  of  compara- 
tively small  merit  bearing  the  title  (Johnson's  Universal  Cyclo- 
paedia) of  the  publication  which  had  come  out  in  1874  to. dispute 
the  field  with  the  American  Cyclopaedia.  Another  instance  of 
lack  of  enterprise  was  afforded  by  the  publishers  of  Chambers's 
Encyclopaedia,  who,  after  bringing  out  an  admirable  work  in  the 
edition  that  appeared  twenty  years  ago,  failed  to  see  their  way  to 
the  publication  of  a  first-class  Anglo-American  encyclopaedia  of 
moderate  size  for  which  that  edition  would  have  made  an  excel- 
lent foundation.  The  American  Cyclopaedia  and  the  New  In- 
ternational Encyclopaedia,  a  work  modelled  largely  on  similar 
lines  but  much  more  comprehensive  in  its  scope,  are  the  only 
two  general  encyclopaedias  brought  forth  in  the  -United  States 
whose  plan  and  execution  have  represented  a  serious  endeavor 
to  produce  an  imposing  work  of  reference.  The  recently  pub- 
lished Encyclopaedia  Americana,  which  contains  about  as  much 
matter  as  the  International,  does  not  merit  serious  consideration. 
Encyclopaedia-making  in  Germany  has  long  been  at  a  stage 
that  indicates  a  singular  narrowness  of  vision  on  the  part  of 
publishers  there.  They  appear  to  have  no  conception  whatever 
of  the  possibilities  open  to  them.  Meyer  and  Brockhaus  con- 
tinue to  travel  along  the  same  well-worn  grooves,  intent  in  their 
keen  rivalry  mainly  on  developing  a  outrance  a  rather  uninspir- 
ing type  of  reference-book,  half  encyclopaedia  and  half  universal 
lexicon,  overflowing  with  topics  not  to  be  found  in  any  Anglo- 
Saxon  encyclopaedia,  but  almost  destitute  of  the  quality  of  read- 
ableness.  The  manner  of  treatment  is  largely  standardized. 
Much  dead  and  useless  matter  is  carried  along  and  the  element 
of  picturesqueness  is  sacrificed.  The  cut-and-dried  manner  of 
presentation  leads  to  singular  flaws.  Who  would  have  thought 
it  possible,  for  instance,  that  both  in  Meyer  and  Brockhaus, 


504  LOUIS   HEILPEIN 

neither  the  name  of  Darwin  nor  the  word  evolution  occurs  in  the 
article  on  Huxley?  The  tens  of  thousands  of  cross-references 
alone  (a  large  proportion  absolutely  useless)  take  up  so  much 
space  that  the  contributors  in  too  many  cases  have  no  free  hand 
in  dealing  with  their  topics.  With  respect  to  their  comprehen- 
siveness, we  cannot,  of  course,  deny  that  the  German  encyclo- 
paedias possess  extraordinary  merit.  No  conceivable  kind  of 
topic  is  permitted  to  escape  their  closely-meshed  nets.  They  are 
universal  question-answerers  to  a  degree  to  which  no  encyclopae- 
dia that  has  ever  appeared  in  an  English-speaking  country  could 
lay  claim.  Yet  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  German  read- 
ing public  would  be  better  served  if,  instead  of  its  all-embracing 
Konversations-Lexikon,  it  had  a  work  constructed  somewhat  on 
the  lines  of  the  ISTew  International  Encyclopaedia  (which  con- 
tains approximately  the  same  amount  of  text  as  Meyer  or  Brock- 
haus),  whose  pages  are  everywhere  readable,  and  which,  by 
husbanding  its  space,  can  afford  to  deal  generously  with  many 
important  topics  but  meagrely  treated  in  the  German  encyclopae- 
dias. Where  German  enterprise  shows  to  great  advantage  is  in 
the  frequent  editions  (with  complete  resetting  of  the  work)  of 
such  a  publication  as  Meyer  and  in  its  magnificent  pictorial  and 
cartographic  equipment,  far  surpassing  what  the  new  Britan- 
nica  or  any  other  encyclopaedia  can  offer. 

In  addition  to  the  functions  belonging  to  such  a  work  as  the 
International,  the  whole  of  whose  contents  is  presumed  to  be  not 
above  the  level  of  the  comprehension  of  the  ordinary  intelligent 
reader,  the  Britannica  assumes  an  additional  function,  that  of 
introducing  the  special  student  in  any  branch  of  science  to  the 
intricacies  of  his  subject  and  of  presenting  to  him  an  exposition 
of  the  development  which  that  branch  of  science  has  attained. 
It  thus  contains  a  large  array  of  weighty  scientific  treatises,  in- 
tended for  the  very  few.  Collectively,  they  render  it  an  impos- 
ing monument  to  the  sciences,  one  that  shows  the  level  that  each 
has  attained.  This  encyclopoedia  is,  therefore,  a  mirror  of  the 
world's  intellectual  achievements  in  a  sense  in  which  the  ordi- 
nary encyclopaedia  cannot  profess  to  be.  The  discharge  of  this 
function,  however,  entails  the  failure  of  the  Britannica  in  some 
measure  to  meet  the  fundamental  requirements  of  a  popular  en- 
cyclopaedia. The  applicant  for  information  or  the  seeker  after 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  505 

knowledge  will  often  be  turned  away  from  its  pages  with  his 
curiosity  unsatisfied.  Much  of  what  the  Britannica  contains 
on  physics  and  chemistry,  for  instance,  will  remain  as  hereto- 
fore a  sealed  book  to  many  who  come  to  learn  out  of  its  pages. 
But  all  this  is  in  conformity  with  a  deliberate  plan.  If  the 
owner  of  the  work  is  in  quest  of  elementary  information  regard- 
ing heat,  electricity,  or  light,  for  example,  he  will  be  told  that 
the  Britannica  does  not  propose  to  lay  before  him  the  instruction 
that  he  can  obtain  from  an  ordinary  school  book.  It  would  have 
been  possible,  perhaps,  to  adopt  a  double  treatment  in  the  case 
of  many  scientific  articles,  especially  where  mathematics  enters 
largely  into  the  subject,  giving  first  a  popular  exposition,  intelli- 
gible to  the  ordinary  reader,  and  after  that  a  full  scientific  com- 
pendium for  the  benefit  of  the  specialist  or  the  student  who  is 
able  to  follow  intricate  mathematical  demonstrations.  It  is 
easy  to  see,  however,  that  the  preparation  of  such  a  composite 
article  would  in  most  cases  not  have  been  a  very  congenial  task, 
or  a  very  feasible  one,  for  a  scientific  expounder. 

The  old  Britannica,  while  it  was  a  monumental  structure,  was 
only  a  half -fledged  encyclopedia.  The  eleventh  edition  contains 
about  fifty  per  cent,  additional  matter.  Such  a  large  increment, 
where  the  scale  was  already  so  generous,  was  deemed  necessary 
as  much  in  order  to  round  out  the  work  as  to  meet  the  demands 
made  upon  space  by  more  than  three  decades  of  the  world's 
progress  and  history.  It  would  have  been  feasible  by  judicious 
excision  and  a  more  careful  delimitation  of  spaces  to  avoid  ex- 
pansion on  such  a  large  scale  without  sacrificing  anything  of 
importance.  We  may  as  well  be  thankful,  however,  that  there 
has  been  little  condensation,  for  there  is  no  more  treacherous 
business  than  the  condensing  of  articles  in  an  encyclopaedia. 
The  most  salient  change  is  the  introduction  of  the  biographies 
of  living  people.  To  be  compelled  to  pass  judgment  on  the 
achievements  and  character  of  persons  not  yet  deceased  has 
hitherto  been  regarded  as  something  not  compatible  with  the  le- 
gitimate functions  of  such  an  august  publication  as  the  Britan- 
nica. A  more  practical  view  has  prevailed  in  the  new  edition, 
one  of  whose  most  valuable  features  is  the  collection  of  articles 
on  contemporary  celebrities.  Nor  will  any  part  of  the  new  mat- 
ter be  appreciated  more  highly  than  the  biographies  of  the  many 


506  LOUIS   HEILPRIK 

eminent  personages  who  adorned  the  period  in  which  the  ninth' 
edition  appeared  or  who  had  achieved  fame  long  before  and  still 
survived  when  the  work  reached  their  names  in  the  alphabetical 
arrangement. 

The  old  Britannica  was  constructed  in  large  measure  on  the 
principle  of  relegating  the  treatment  of  specific  topics  to  com- 
prehensive articles,  some  of  them  long  enough  to  make  a  good- 
sized  book.  The  ninth  edition  started  out,  indeed,  apparently 
without  any  conception  as  to  how  far  this  method  might  legiti- 
mately be  carried,  for  in  the  article  Agriculture  a  full  and  prac- 
tical treatise  on  husbandry  was  presented  to  the  British  public, 
in  which  the  various  kinds  of  crops  and  of  live  stock  were  treated 
individually  on  a  very  extensive  scale.  The  corresponding 
article  in  the  present  edition  embraces  only  about  one-third  as 
much  text,  the  material  being  placed  where  it  properly  belongs 
and  where  the  user  of  the  encyclopaedia  will  naturally  look  for 
it.  Thus,  too,  the  specific  information  regarding  the  various 
chemical  elements  was  before  largely  relegated  to  the  article 
Chemistry.  This  feature  of  the  Britannica  impaired  its  value 
as  a  work  of  reference.  The  defect  has  been  remedied  in  the 
eleventh  edition,  whose  design  conforms  to  that  of  ordinary  en- 
cyclopaedias with  respect  to  the  accessibility  of  the  information 
that  it  contains.  At  the  same  time,  the  feature  of  long  treatises, 
as  we  have  seen,  has  not  by  any  means  been  discarded.  Many 
subjects,  indeed,  are  treated  at  inordinate  length,  even  for  such 
a  copious  encyclopaedia.  An  illustration  of  this  is  afforded  by 
the  article  Hydraulics,  covering  seventy-six  pages,  in  which  the 
discussion  of  special  problems  having  no  important  bearing  is 
carried  too  far.  An  innovation  is  the  introduction  of  purely 
lexicographic  matter,  which,  in  addition  to  scientific  and  techni- 
cal information,  affords  much  antiquarian  lore  culled  from  the 
most  recent  sources,  such  as  the  New  English  Dictionary. 

The  new  Britannica  can  justly  claim  to  be  an  Anglo-Ameri- 
can encyclopaedia,  whereas  the  ninth  edition  was  a  British  en- 
cyclopaedia slightly  Americanized.  The  article  Agriculture  con- 
tained no  reference  whatever  to  American  conditions.  The 
article  Railway  allowed  barely  three  pages  to  the  United  States 
out  of  a  total  of  thirty-two.  In  the  eleventh  edition,  this  topic, 
as  far  as  economic  aspects  are  concerned,  was  entrusted  to  the 


THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  507 

great  American  authority,  President  Hadley.  In  the  twenty- 
eight-page-article  on  Music  there  was  no  allusion  to  American 
musicians  or  composers.  Of  course,  there  was  no  blame  to  be 
attached  to  the  editors  of  the  old  Britannica  in  every  instance 
of  the  kind  here  mentioned,  as  they  did  not  profess  to  go  out 
of  their  way  in  order  to  make  their  work  especially  adapted  to 
the  American  market.  Their  remissness  with  respect  to  the 
United  States  took  the  shape,  however,  in  places  of  adding  in- 
sult to  neglect.  The  article  Horse  contained  the  following: 
"  The  development  of  speed  in  the  trotting-horse  ...  is  one 
of  the  great  industries  of  the  United  States  of  America."  We 
wonder  where  the  writer  of  the  article  Bison  in  the  ninth 
edition  got  his  information  that  the  animal  was  sometimes 
("rarely")  found  "to  the  east  of  the  Appalachian  range." 
The  proofreaders  of  the  old  Britannica  need  not  have  been  quite 
so  ignorant  of  American  geography  as  to  allow  "  the  St.  Louis 
bridge  at  Cincinnati "  (in  the  article  Bridges)  to  pass  uncor- 
rected.  But,  then,  we  must  remember  that  it  was  a  fashionable 
error  in  England  at  the  time  of  our  civil  war  to  believe  that  the 
Mississippi  River  was  the  boundary  between  the  North  and  the 
South.  The  sins  of  former  British  encyclopaedists  in  matters 
American  are  only  on  a  par  with  those  committed  by  such  pains- 
taking encyclopaedists  as  the  Germans.  Brockhaus,  in  its  latest 
edition  (the  fourteenth),  still  informs  its  readers  that  Mt.  Ver- 
non,  N.  Y.,  is  the  place  where  Washington  had  his  country  seat 
and  where  he  was  buried.  Both  Brockhaus  and  Meyer  strive  to 
be  pretty  full  with  respect  to  American  biography,  but  neither 
has  ever  heard  of  Chief  Justice  Marshall. 

In  the  eleventh  edition  of  the  Britannica  a  favored  position 
is  accorded  to  the  United  States.  There  is  no  general  encyclo- 
paedia of  recent  date  that  contains  such  full  biographies  of 
Americans,  although  in  the  matter  of  inclusion  the  line  has 
naturally  been  drawn  much  closer  than  in  the  International. 
For  our  part,  we  should  have  preferred  to  see  the  standard  of 
inclusion  set  higher  than  it  has  been.  A  detailed  biography 
of  Mrs.  Eaton  ("  Peggy  O'Neill "),  whose  tribulations  caused 
so  much  trouble  in  Jackson's  first  administration,  mars  a  work 
like  the  Britannica.  Timothy  Dexter,  soldier  and  crank,  to 
whom  nearly  a  column  is  devoted,  might  likewise  well  have 


508  LOUIS   HEILPKIK 

been  spared.  The  history  and  politics  of  the  United  States  are 
generously  dealt  with,  and  the  geography  of  our  country  leaves 
nothing  to  be  desired  on  the  score  of  fulness.  The  articles  on 
the  very  small  towns  in  the  United  States  are  even  on  such  a 
scale  as  to  disturb  the  symmetry  of  the  work.  Of  course,  in 
most  departments  the  process  of  Americanization  could  by  no 
means  be  carried  out  so  effectually  as  in  those  of  biography,  his- 
tory, and  geography.  In  the  case  of  a  great  many  subjects,  as, 
for  example,  legal  topics,  the  introduction  of  information  re- 
garding the  United  States  on  a  scale  required  in  an  American 
publication  would  have  marred  the  articles  as  contributions  to 
a  British  encyclopaedia.  That  full  justice  is  not  always  done 
to  the  United  States  even  where  there  was  nothing  to  prevent 
is  exemplified  in  the  article  Aqueduct,  in  which  there  is  no  men- 
tion of  the  new  aqueduct  that  the  city  of  New  York  is  construct- 
ing, which  will  dwarf  every  work  of  the  kind,  ancient  or  mod- 
ern, into  insignificance ;  or  of  the  Los  Angeles  aqueduct,  which 
will  be  by  far  the  longest  in  the  world.  This  article  was  con- 
tributed by  several  writers,  and  the  section  on  modern  aque- 
ducts was  assigned  to  a  member  of  a  firm  of  civil  engineers  in 
London,  who  shows  by  the  amount  of  attention  that  he  bestows 
upon  iron  and  wooden  conduits  his  unfitness  to  deal  with  the 
broad  aspects  of  his  subject  —  an  illustration  of  the  peculiar 
need  of  caution  that  should  be  exercised  by  the  editor  of  an  en- 
cyclopaedia in  entrusting  technological  articles  to  practical  men. 
The  article  Canal  does  not  concern  itself  with  canals  in  the 
United  States,  although  the  Erie  Canal  is  the  longest  artificial 
waterway  in  the  world.  The  article  Irrigation  (13  pages)  deals 
at  length  with  the  reclamation  work  prosecuted  on  such  a  vast 
scale  by  the  United  States  government,  but  gives  no  idea  of  the 
extraordinary  character  of  some  of  the  engineering  achievements. 
A  curious  feature  of  the  old  Britannica  was  its  neglect  of  mil- 
itary history.  There  were  no  articles  on  such  subjects  as  the 
Seven  Years'  War  or  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  famous  battle- 
fields were  for  the  most  part  omitted  if  the  place  from  which 
the  engagement  took  its  name  was  in  itself  unimportant.  There 
was  no  such  caption  as  Dettingen  or  Hohenlinden,  Bull  Run  or 
Chancellorsville.  The  Londoner  whose  daily  walk  took  him 
past  the  Nelson  Monument  might  look  in  vain  for  Trafalgar. 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  509 

The  new  Britannica  devotes  an  amount  of  space  to  wars  and 
battles  that  would  make  in  itself  a  large  volume  on  military  his- 
tory. We  cannot  help  feeling,  indeed,  that  this  feature  is  ex- 
aggerated. Eighteen  and  a  half  quarto  pages  devoted  to  the 
Great  Rebellion  in  England  is  too  much  even  for  an  encyclo- 
paedia that  has  almost  boundless  space  at  its  command.  In  the 
various  ways  which  we  have  indicated  and  in  many  other  re- 
spects the  eleventh  edition  of  the  Britannica  is  an  immense  ad- 
vance beyond  the  ninth.  But  the  new  work  is  cast  in  the  pat- 
tern of  the  old  and  breathes  the  same  spirit,  even  if  in  some 
ways  a  concession  is  made  to  demands  hitherto  regarded  as  too 
plebeian  to  claim  recognition. 

As  the  Britannica  has  always  been  so  strong  on  the  scientific 
side,  while  maintaining  the  traditions  of  old-time  culture,  one 
does  not  have  to  discern  in  the  new  edition  any  particular 
change  of  complexion  that  would  reflect  the  retrusion  of  the  cult 
of  letters  by  that  of  the  arts  and  sciences  which  has  character- 
ized the  world's  intellectual  development  in  the  course  of  the 
last  generation.  A  glance  at  the  list  of  leading  articles  (with 
the  names  of  the  contributors)  prefixed  to  each  volume -will  show 
that  the  Britannica  remains  as  much  as  ever  a  scholar's  ency- 
clopaedia in  the  face  of  the  innovations  required  to  make  it  a 
practical  work  of  reference.  While  pulsating  with  the  activities 
of  modern  research,  it  continues  to  exhale  the  atmosphere  of  the 
old  scholastic  halls.  Many  of  the  fine  essays  written  for  pre- 
vious editions  have,  as  a  matter  of  course,  been  retained  vir- 
tually unchanged,  or  but  slightly  altered.  The  impressive 
monograph  on  Descartes,  for  example,  contributed  by  William 
Wallace  to  the  ninth  edition,  reappears  with  little  change  in  the 
eleventh.  So,  too,  Jebb's  Demosthenes.  Possessors  of  the  new 
Britannica  will  enjoy  reading  Macaulay's  life  of  Goldsmith, 
which  has  done  such  good  service  in  previous  editions  and  which 
is  reproduced  "  slightly  revised  "  by  Austin  Dobson.  Dickens, 
who  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  the  ninth  edition,  has  his  life 
retold  and  his  writings  subjected  to  a  fresh  criticism  by  Thomas 
Seccombe. 


510  LOUIS   HEILPREST 


II 

A  little  ramble  through  one  of  the  volumes  of  the  new  Bri- 
tannica,  with  the  ninth  edition  at  our  side,  will  serve  to  show 
the  nature  of  the  change  undergone  in  the  transition  from  the 
encyclopaedia  of  1875-1888  to  that  of  1911.  Let  us  glance,  for 
example,  at  the  section  comprised  under  the  initial  In.  Be- 
tween the  captions  Inchbald  and  Independents  in  the  old  Britan- 
nica  we  find  just  two  lines,  consisting  of  cross-references  from 
Incubation  to  Birds,  Keproduction,  and  Poultry  (the  last  not 
justified).  In  the  eleventh  edition,  nineteen  pages  have  been 
introduced  at  this  place.  They  include  Inclinometer  (instru- 
ment for  measuring  the  dip  of  the  magnetic  needle),  Income 
Tax,  Incubation  and  Incubators  (comprising  Bird  Incubation, 
[Bacteriological  Incubation,  and  Human  Incubation),  Incu- 
nabula, Independence  (a  small  city  of  Missouri  whose  history  is 
given  in  great  detail),  and  Independence  (Declaration  of),  be- 
sides several  minor  biographical,  legal,  and  scientific  articles. 
Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum  has  been  rewritten  and  the  in- 
formation brought  down  to  the  doings  of  Pius  X.  The  exten- 
sive article  on  India  contributed  to  the  ninth  edition  by  W.  W. 
Hunter,  author  of  the  monumental  "  Imperial  Gazetteer  of 
India,"  has  been  essentially  retained  in  an  abridged  form,  a 
section  having  been  added  on  the  costumes  of  the  peoples  of 
India.  There  is  an  article  of  six  pages  on  Indian  Architecture, 
a  topic  absent  in  the  ninth  edition,  except  in  so  far  as  it  figures 
in  the  general  treatise  on  architecture.  Sir  William  Markby 
contributes  a  weighty  article  (12^  pages)  on  Indian  Law, 
divided  into  two  sections :  Hindu  Law  and  Mahommedan  Law. 
iWhat  corresponds  to  this  in  the  old  Britannica  is  just  one  page 
on  Hindu  Law,  under  India.  In  place  of  the  rather  brief  ac- 
count of  the  Sepoy  Mutiny  given  before  under  India,  we  have 
now  a  separate  article,  Indian  Mutiny  (4y2  pages).  To  In- 
diana, which  occupied  less  than  two  pages  in  the  ninth  edition 
(where  the  historical  information  terminated  with  the  admis- 
sion of  the  State  into  the  Union),  are  accorded  five  and  a  half 
pages  in  the  eleventh  edition.  Indians  (North  American)  covers 
three  times  as  much  space  as  it  did  before,  no  less  than  thirty- 


THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  511 

one  pages  being  devoted  to  the  subject,  which  is  treated  in  a  re- 
markably comprehensive  manner  by  Professor  Chamberlain  of 
Clark  University.  Among  the  many  new  topics  that  figure  in 
the  succeeding  fifty  pages  are  Indo-Aryan  Languages,  Indo- 
China  (French),  Induction  Coil,  Inebriety  (Law  of),  Infal- 
libility, Infancy,  and  Infantry.  The  last-named  occupies  six- 
teen pages,  whereas  in  the  ninth  edition  there  was  no  such 
article,  the  subject  having  been  relegated  to  the  article  War, 
where  only  three  pages  were  devoted  to  it.  The  article  Inqui- 
sition (9  pages),  by  P.  D.  Alphandery,  professor  at  the  Sor- 
bonne,  has  taken  the  place  of  a  much  shorter  one.  Prominence 
is  given  in  the  bibliography  to  the  writings  of  Henry  C.  Lea, 
whom  Professor  G.  E.  Woodberry  has  strangely  overlooked 
among  recent  historians  in  his  fine  article  on  American  Litera- 
ture. Insanity  (21  pages)  has  a  new  feature  in  the  section  on 
Hospital  Treatment,  contributed  by  Professor  Frederick  Peter- 
son of  Columbia.  Insectivora  represents  a  topic  not  treated 
under  its  own  head  in  the  old  Britannica.  The  article  Instinct, 
contributed  to  the  ninth  edition  by  Romanes,  has  been  supplanted 
by  one  from  the  pen  of  another  authority  on  this  baffling  sub- 
ject, Professor  C.  L.  Morgan,  who  has  also  an  article  on  Intelli- 
gence in  Animals,  a  new  topic  in  the  eleventh  edition.  Instru- 
mentation (11/2  pages)  is  only  one  among  many  new  articles  in 
,  the  department  of  music.  The  subject  of  International  Law  is 
presented  afresh  by  Sir  Thomas  Barclay,  who  asserts  that  the 
chief  source  of  such  law  will  "  in  all  probability  for  the  future 
be  that  '  Parliament  of  Mankind,  the  Hague  Conferences.'  " 
This  article  is  followed  by  one  on  Private  International  Law, 
in  regard  to  which  subject  the  old  Britannica  was  silent.  Inter- 
polation (4:^/2  pages)  illustrates  the  expansion  of  the  mathemati- 
cal department.  Close  upon  this  comes  a  strictly  American 
topic,  which  did  not  admit  of  treatment  in  the  ninth  edition, 
Interstate  Commerce,  occupying  three  pages. 

To  take  a  single  department  by  itself,  a  glance  at  the  fresh 
historical  contributions  will  give  an  idea  of  the  splendid  scale 
on  which  the  work  of  remaking  the  Britannica  has  been  exe- 
cuted. The  history  of  England,  France,  Germany,  and  Austria- 
Hungary  from  the  time  where  the  record  closed  in  the  ninth  edi- 
tion occupies  collectively  seventy  pages,  which  would  make  a 


512  LOUIS   HEILPEIN 

duodecimo  volume  of  about  350  pages.  Sixteen  pages  are  de- 
voted to  Egypt  since  the  deposition  of  Ismail  Pasha.  The  event- 
ful past  of  Bohemia  occupies  nearly  ten  pages,  where  the  old 
Britannica  had  barely  a  column.  One  of  the  weightiest  contri- 
butions in  this  department  is  Caliphate  (31  pages),  from  the 
pen  of  the  eminent  Arabic  scholar,  Jan  de  Goeje. 

The  editing  of  the  eleventh  edition  under  the  conditions  that 
governed  its  production  was  a  Herculean  task,  and  the  under- 
taking has  been  successfully  accomplished.  This  does  not  imply 
that  the  manifold  problems  that  confront  the  editor  of  a  great 
encyclopaedia  were  everywhere  successfully  solved.  The  norms 
that  have  to  be  set  in  the  execution  of  such  a  work  are  so  numer- 
ous and  so  hard  to  establish,  and  the  difficulty  of  getting  contrib- 
utors to  execute  their  tasks  in  a  way  conformable  to  the  system 
and  requirements  of  the  publication  is  so  great,  that  even  where 
seemingly  boundless  pecuniary  resources  have  been  placed  at  the 
command  of  the  editor,  the  result  will  still  be  far  from  perfec- 
tion. By  the  side  of  the  most  skilful  constructive  editorship 
there  is  need  of  a  rectifying  department,  more  or  less  destruc- 
tive in  its  functions,  that  shall  guard  at  every  step  against  de- 
fects, incongruities,  absurdities,  mistakes,  and  blemishes,  and 
shall  not  concern  itself  with  anything  else.  The  editors  of  en- 
cyclopaedias have  been  loath  to  recognize  this  necessity,  having 
no  adequate  conception  of  the  pitfalls  that  beset  them  at  every 
turn  and  not  being  prepared  to  encounter  the  delays,  vexation, 
and  expenditure  entailed  by  a  thorough  system  of  rectification 
and  verification,  which  indeed  it  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  install. 
Such  super-editorship,  imposed  upon  the  constructive  editor- 
ship, does  not  appear  to  have  been  part  of  the  apparatus  in 
the  production  of  the  magnificent  work  before  us.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  could  hardly  have  been  introduced  in  the 
required  form  under  the  stress  involved  in  the  feature  of  simul- 
taneous publication.  The  following  are  examples  of  various 
kinds  of  shortcomings  detected  in  turning  the  pages  of  the 
volumes  before  us. 

The  ninth  edition  contained  under  the  title  Dictionary  a  list 
of  dictionaries  of  the  principal  languages  of  the  world,  occupy- 
ing several  closely-printed  pages.  It  was  an  absurd  perform- 
ance. The  place  for  such  information  is,  of  course,  in  the 


THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  513 

individual  articles  on  the  various  languages.  It  was  a  great 
blunder  to  retain  this  useless  compilation.  But  the  worst  of  it 
is  that  it  stands  here  but  slightly  altered,  with  its  absurdities 
and  mistakes  reproduced.  The  places  where  the  dictionaries 
were  published  are  generally  given  in  the  form  in  which  they 
appeared  on  the  title-page  or  in  the  books  from  which  this  list 
was  compiled,  and  frequently  also  in  the  English  form.  We 
have,  therefore,  Stockholm,  Holm,  Holmiae;  Haag,  La  Haye, 
's  Gravenhage;  Moskau,  Moskva,  Mosque;  Bucharest,  Bucu- 
resci,  Boucourest,  Boucoureshti.  The  learned  compiler  made 
no  effort,  of  course,  to  disentangle  the  names  from  their  inflec- 
tional or  post-positional  endings.  Budan  (misprint  for  Budan) 
is  the  Magyar  for  "  at  Buda,"  and  Kassan  for  "  at  Kassa  (Kas- 
chau)."  The  Gipsy  and  Albanian  languages  continue  to  figure 
here  under  the  Ugrian  tongues,  although  their  Indo-European 
character  has  been  well  established.  It  is  evident  from  the 
scholarly  article  on  Gipsies  by  Rabbi  Moses  Gaster  (6  pages) 
that  there  is  no  longer  any  doubt  regarding  the  Indian  (Hindu) 
origin  of  the  Gipsy  dialects.  Under  Dial  we  are  told  that  "  in 
the  eighteenth  century  clocks  and  watches  began  to  supersede 
sun-dials,"  a  very  misleading  statement.  In  close  proximity 
to  this  profound  treatise  on  a  subject  that  will  appeal  to  but 
very  few,  is  the  shallow  article  on  Porfirio  Diaz,  in  which  the 
treaty  of  Guadalupe-Hidalgo  is  spoken  of  as  having  transferred 
Texas  to  the  United  States,  in  place  of  New  Mexico  and  Cali- 
fornia. The  article  Ink  is  so  largely  reproduced  from  the  ninth 
edition  that  we  have  serious  doubts  as  to  its  being  up  to  date. 
It  is  certainly  queer  to  see  the  following  passage  in  the  para- 
graph on  Logwood  Ink  appear  again  after  an  interval  of  just 
thirty  years :  "  It  is  affirmed  by  Viedt  that  this  drawback  may 
be  overcome  by  the  use  of  soda."  The  article  on  Eagle  adduces 
the  authority  of  Pallas  for  the  statement  that  the  bergut,  a 
species  used  by  the  Kirghiz  Tartars  for  the  capture  of  ante- 
lopes, foxes,  and  wolves  [!],  is  "valued  at  the  price  of  two 
camels."  The  eminent  naturalist  here  quoted  as  though  he  had 
just  been  writing  on  the  subject  died  precisely  one  hundred 
years  ago.  Some  one  of  the  readers  of  the  galleys  who  allowed 
this  to  pass  ought  at  least  to  have  been  bold  enough  to  excise 
from  the  article  Eskimo  the  tribute  paid  to  the  voracity  of  this 


514  ,  LOUIS   HEILPKIN 

Hyperborean  folk  (a  relic  of  the  old  Britannica),  to  tlie  effect 
that  "  two  will  easily  dispose  of  a  seal  at  a  sitting." 

The  article  Aeronautics,  occupying  ten  pages,  devotes  only  a 
little  more  than  a  page  to  dirigible  balloons,  the  construction  of 
which  is  not  adequately  described;  nor  is  the  information  up 
to  date  (although  the  illustrations  are),  as  any  one  can  tell  by 
glancing  over  the  table  giving  the  performances  of  such  balloons. 
The  page  of  mathematical  formulae,  etc.,  near  the  beginning  of 
the  article  should  have  been  placed  under  Flight  and  Flying. 
In  the  lengthy  article  on  this  latter  subject,  which  is  made  up  of 
Pettigrew's  treatise  on  Flight  in  the  ninth  edition  and  a  full  and 
up-to-date  account  of  what  has  been  achieved  in  aviation,  it  is 
amazing  to  find  entire  passages  about  models  of  flying  machines 
reproduced  from  the  old  article  without  any  change  of  tense  in 
statements  made  above  thirty  years  ago  —  statements  utterly 
valueless  dbw  —  as,  for  example :  "  Penaud  calculates  that  one 
horse-power  would  elevate  and  support  85  Ibs."  This  article 
is  defective  in  containing  no  actual  presentation  of  the  theory 
of  the  aeroplane.  In  the  table  at  the  end  the  Wright  brothers 
are  not  credited  with  the  remarkable  nights  mentioned  in  the 
text  as  having  been  performed  by  them  in  1904  and  1905,  which 
made  them  the  first  successful  aviators.  Under  the  head  of 
Gothic,  we  are  told  that  it  is  "  the  term  generally  applied  to 
mediaeval  architecture,  and  more  especially  to  that  in  which  the 
pointed  arch  appears."  As  though  Byzantine  architecture  and 
Saracenic  architecture  were  not  mediaeval.  Then  we  read  that 
some  of  the  Goths  "  (the  East  Goths,  or  Ostrogoths),  settled  in 
the  eastern  portion  of  Europe,  and  others  (the  West  Goths,  or 
Visigoths),  in  the  Asturias  of  Spain."  The  presence  of  such 
an  egregious  misstatement  (tucked  away  in  an  unobtrusive  little 
lexicographic  article),  which  ought  not  to  have  escaped  the  eye 
of  any  reader  of  the  proof  having  some  knowledge  of  mediaeval 
history,  shows  what  flaws  the  editor  of  an  encyclopaedia  may 
expect  to  creep  into  his  work  through  the  lack  of  ubiquitous 
oversight. 

The  spirited  sketch  of  the  events  of  the  last  thirty  years  in  the 
article  on  Ireland  takes  seven  pages.  The  history  of  the  pre- 
ceding eighty  years,  from  the  rebellion  of  1798  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Irish  Land  League,  reproduced  from  the  ninth 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPERT  515 

edition,  occupies  only  about  a  page,  so  that  the  proportions  of 
the  article  are  badly  distorted.  A  considerable  section  of  the 
old  article  should,  of  course,  have  been  recast  and  expanded  from 
a  very  brief  recital  —  in  which,  for  example,  the  name  of  Glad- 
stone does  not  occur  —  into  a  narrative  sufficiently  detailed  not 
to  be  altogether  incompatible  with  the  section  that  has  been 
appended.  This  subject  opens  up  a  broad  vista  in  the  intri- 
cacies of  encyclopaedia-editing.  Bolgari,  the  capital  of  the 
northern  Bulgarians,  was  not  captured  by  Tamerlane  early  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  but  at  its  close.  The  Black  Sea  is  not 
bounded  on  the  east  by  Asia  Minor,  but  by  Transcaucasia.  The 
biographer  of  Bismarck  speaks  of  Hesse-Cassel  and  Hesse- 
Nassau  as  having  been  taken  by  Prussia  after  the  war  of  1866, 
where  he  should  have  said  Hesse-Cassel  and  Nassau.  In  the 
article  Electors,  one  of  those  contributions  that  evince  the  ful- 
ness with  which  mediaeval  institutions  are  treated  in  the  Bri- 
tannica,  some  mention  should  have  been  made  of  the  fact  that 
the  ruler  of  Bohemia,  one  of  the  seven  electors  recognized  in  the 
Golden  Bull  of  1356,  exercised  his  right  to  vote  only  for  a  short 
time  after  the  publication  of  that  instrument,  so  that  the  num- 
ber of  princes  who  participated  in  the  election  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Emperor  was  actually  reduced  to  six.  There  is  no 
article  on  Embargo  in  United  States  history.  In  the  biography 
of  W.  S.  Hancock  the  electoral  vote  at  the  Presidential  election 
should  have  been  given. 

The  article  Iceberg  is  too  meagre,  nothing  being  said  about 
the  dimensions  of  some  of  the  huge  floating  islands  of  ice,  the 
possibility  (or  impossibility)  of  detecting  the  presence  of  ice- 
bergs in  a  fog,  etc.  Again,  under  Glacier  no  mention  is  made 
of  the  size  of  such  vast  glaciers  as  the  Muir  or  Humboldt.  Ice- 
yachting,  which  is  described  in  an  article  well  up  to  date,  and 
naturally  devoted  largely  to  the  United  States,  contains  an  ex- 
planation of  the  paradox  of  sailing  faster  than  the  wind  (taken 
from  an  article  in  the  Badminton  Library)  which  sounds 
strange  to  any  one  familiar  with  the  first  principles  of  dynam- 
ics. Having  touched  upon  the  subject  of  sport,  in  which  field 
the  new  Britannica  is  as  exhaustive  as  in  every  other,  we  can- 
not refrain  from  saying  that  in  the  article  Golf  the  long  list  of 
successial  British  champions,  male  and  female  (brought  down 


516  LOUIS    HEILPKIN 

to  1910),  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  dignity  of  this  encyclope- 
dia. Much  more  undignified  still  is  the  reproduction  of  some 
of  our  college  yells  in  the  article  Cheering.  In  the  excellent 
article  on  Lake  Erie  there  is  no  mention  made  of  Perry's  vic- 
tory in  the  naval  encounter  which  has  passed  into  history  under 
the  name  of  the  Battle  of  Lake  Erie.  We  fail  to  see  why  such 
thoroughly  Austrian  literary  personages  as  Grillparzer  (who 
has,  however,  a  very  good  biography)  and  Gindely  should  be 
called  German.  The  designation  of  Ebner-Eschenbach  as  an 
Austrian  novelist  shows  in  any  case  a  lack  of  consistency.  It  is 
regrettable  that  the  subject  of  Insectivorous  Plants  has  been  vir- 
tually eliminated  as  a  separate  topic,  the  reader  being  referred 
to  the  articles  on  the  various  plants  to  whose  diet  insects  con- 
tribute. This  interesting  theme  called  emphatically  for  col- 
lective treatment,  admitting  of  a  general  discussion,  even  at  the 
cost  of  considerable  repetition.  In  the  biography  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus  the  date  of  the  battle  of  Breitenfeld  (Leipzig),  in 
which  the  Swedish  monarch  vanquished  Tilly  (September  17, 
1631),  is  given  according  to  the  new  style  (Gregorian  calendar), 
and  that  of  the  battle  of  Liitzen,  in  which  he  fell  fighting  Wal- 
lenstein  (November  6,  1632),  according  to  the  old  style. 

The  Spanish  philosopher  Balmes  figures  under  the  French 
form  of  his  name,  a  grave  accent,  which  does  not  exist  in  Span- 
ish, being  placed  over  the  e.  The  article  Giraffe,  whose  up-to- 
date  character  is  attested  by  the  mention  of  that  recently  dis- 
covered, relative,  the  okapi,  is  singularly  brief,  even  the  height 
of  this  tallest  of  mammals  not  being  stated.  In  the  section  of 
the  article  Hydraulics  dealing  with  frictional  resistance  (Vol. 
XIV,  pp.  58,  59),  whole  strings  of  figures  are  made  a  hundred- 
fold too  large  through  the  displacement  of  the  decimal  point, 
an  error  brought  over  from  the  ninth  edition.  The  subject  of 
the  homing  instinct  of  animals,  briefly  discussed  in  the  ninth 
edition  in  the  article  Instinct,  does  not  appear  to  be  dealt  with 
anywhere  in  the  work  before  us.  A  serious  omission  in  the  geo- 
graphical department  is  that  of  the  town  of  Cobalt,  the  centre 
of  the  rich  silver-producing  district  of  Canada.  Amarillo,  the 
metropolis  of  the  Texan  Panhandle,  and  the  bustling  town  of 
Globe,  in  the  copper  district  of  Arizona,  have  likewise  been  over- 
looked. There  is  no  such  caption  as  Colosseum  (Coliseum). 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC   EXPEKT  517 

The  proof -sheets  of  the  Britannica  have  not  been  subjected  to 
a  sufficient  scrutiny  with  reference  to  the  elimination  of  ordi- 
nary misprints.  The  publication,  therefore,  lacks  that  dis- 
tinguished character  of  being  a  monument  of  the  printer's  craft 
which  belonged  to  the  American  Cyclopaedia,  whose  pages  were 
read  and  reread  until  every  typographical  blemish,  it  may  almost 
be  said,  had  been  removed.  Under  Glass  (stained),  we  find 
Toldeo  for  Toledo;  under  Granaries  (in  the  topographical 
plan),  Victorio  Docks;  under  Indians,  Alonkian  for  Algon- 
kian ;  under  Inquisition,  Gius  for  Pius ;  under  Gundulich  (bib- 
liography), "last  cantos"  for  "lost  cantos."  Under  Ireland, 
we  find  Poynings's  Act  (p.  773),  and  Poyning's  law  (pp.  779, 
780).  The  titles  of  books  in  foreign  languages,  it  must  be  said, 
are  very  correctly  printed. 

A  singular  exhibition  of  lack  of  judgment  has  introduced  a 
blemish  into  the  new  Britannica  which,  to  some  of  its  readers, 
will  be  very  irritating.  An  editorial  ordinance  appears  to  have 
gone  forth  to  the  effect  that  whenever  reference  is  made  in  an 
article  to  a  writer  or  a  scientist  his  initials  must  be  prefixed 
to  his  surname.  Thus  in  the  article  Dynamics,  Helmholtz  has 
to  figure  as  H.  F.  L.  Helmholtz,  and  Lagrange  as  J.  L.  La- 
grange.  Under  Hydrogen,  we  have  to  read  of  H.  Cavendish  and 
A.  L.  Lavoisier;  under  Entomology,  of  C.  Darwin;  under 
Huxley,  of  J.  W.  Goethe.  Such  introduction  of  the  initials  is 
calculated  to  have  the  effect  of  misleading  the  reader,  who  is  apt 
to  imagine  that  the  person  mentioned  is  other  than  the  famous 
individual  of  the  name.  But  what  makes  the  whole  thing 
vicious,  in  addition  to  its  being  ridiculous,  is  the  fact  that  in 
the  case  of  a  great  many  European  celebrities  who  have  several 
Christian  names,  there  is  one  particular  name  by  which  the 
personage  is  known  and  which  alone  usually  accompanies  the 
surname. 

The  ample  bibliographies  constitute  a  prominent  feature  of 
the  new  Britannica,  but  one  which  in  our  opinion  is  altogether 
overdone.  The  references,  for  example,  appended  to  the  biog- 
raphies of  mediaeval  rulers  are  largely  of  little  practical  value. 
Take,  for  example,  the  German  sovereigns  who  bore  the  name 
of  Conrad.  Their  history  is  the  history  of  Germany,  and  the 
student  in  quest  of  authorities  ought  to  know  enough  to  consult 


518  LOUIS    HEILPRIN 

the  list  of  books  on  mediaeval  German  history  given  in  the 
article  Germany. 

The  illustrations  and  maps  in  these  volumes  vary  greatly  in 
merit.  It  appears  to  us  that  the  half-tone  process  might  have 
been  made  to  yield  much  better  results. 

It  is  an  easy  matter  to  pick  flaws  in  a  vast  encyclopedic  pub- 
lication, however  great  may  be  its  merits.  Such  pointing  out 
of  defects  in  the  new  Britannica  is  not  meant  to  be  taken  as  a 
serious  disparagement  of  the  character  of  the  work.  The  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica,  in  its  latest  form,  is  a  monument  to  the 
learning  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  such  as  no  other  people  has 
ever  reared  to  itself. 


Ill 

Although  the  circumstance  that  all  the  volumes  of  the  new 
Britannica  were  prepared  simultaneously  ought  to  render  it  un- 
necessary to  make  any  special  comment  upon  the  contents  of 
the  second  half  of  the  work,  issued  within  a  few  months  of  the 
first,  still  it  would  be  ungracious  to  leave  the  concluding  four- 
teen volumes  altogether  unnoticed.  To  pick  out  a  miscellaneous 
handful  from  the  imposing  array  of  new  articles  on  old  subjects 
whose  presence  or  extent  evinces  the  enlarged  scope  and  greater 
fulness  of  this  edition  as  compared  with  its  predecessor,  mention 
may  be  made  of  Ship,  Railways,  Water  Supply,  Painting, 
Museums  of  Art,  Theatre,  Temple,  Vision,  Spinal  Cord,  Map, 
Logic,  Rumania,  Magnetism  (Terrestrial),  Tool,  Typography, 
Lighthouse,  Lighting,  Ordnance,  Polar  Regions,  Trade  Unions, 
Strikes  and  Lockouts,  Papacy,  Liquor  Laws,  Japan,  Song, 
Metternich,  Picaresque,  Novel,  Science,  Leviticus,  Textual 
Criticism. 

The  article  Ship  fills  62  pages,  besides  28  pages  of  plates. 
Here  we  find  on  turning  to  the  ninth  edition  (the  "tenth" 
edition  was  merely  the  ninth  edition  plus  a  huge  supplement) 
one  of  those  extraordinary  lapses  that  marked  the  nonchalant 
spirit  of  the  old  Britannica,  whose  failings  were  on  a  par  with 
its  transcendent  qualities.  The  subject  was  disposed  of  in  just 
five  pages.  These  five  pages  contained  a  good  deal  of  scholarly 
information  about  the  war  vessels  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 


THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIC    EXPERT  519 

and  something  about  the  mediaeval  galleys,  and  there  the  story 
abruptly  ended.  To  add  insult  to  such  outrage,  a  table  was 
inserted  in  the  article,  borrowed  from  a  learned  German  an- 
tiquary, which  would  lead  the  untutored  reader  to  imagine  that 
the  ancients  had  ships  of  war  nearly  as  big  as  Queen  Victoria's 
battleships.  Of  course,  there  was  an  article  on  Shipbuilding, 
but  this  did  not  contain  the  information  that  was  so  mysteri- 
ously absent  under  Ship.  The  new  article  on  Shipbuilding  is 
four  times  as  long  as  the  old  one,  covering  57  pages,  besides  13 
pages  of  plates.  It  is  in  great  part  a  sealed  book  to  all  but 
advanced  students  of  marine  engineering,  and,  if  the  truth  has 
to  be  told,  one  would  almost  be  glad  to  barter  it  for  the  sixteen- 
page  article  on  Seamanship  in  the  ninth  edition,  still  reflecting 
the  spirit  of  the  romantic  days  of  wooden  ships.  The  subject 
of  Sea-Power,  hitherto  ignored,  is  discussed  in  a  twelve-page 
article  by  Sir  Cyprian  Bridge.  Another  maritime  topic  not 
represented  in  the  old  Britannica  is  Steamship  Lines,  occupying 
11  pages  of  small  type.  Shipping  (5  pages)  gives  statistics  of 
the  commercial  navies  of  the  world.  These  various  articles  on 
naval  matters,  with  the  addition  of  the  eighteen-page  article 
on  Navy  and  Navies  (defective  in  the  scant  reference  to  the 
Italian  republics  and  in  the  inadequate  history  of  our  navy)  and 
the  14  pages  on  Navigation,  would  make  about  1,000  duodecimo 


By  the  side  of  all  this,  the  article  on  Railways  (42  pages,  the 
equivalent  of  about  250  duodecimo  pages),  although  it  is  twice 
as  long  as  the  one  in  the  ninth  edition,  which  did  not  concern 
itself  with  railway  legislation  and,  among  other  things,  omitted 
the  whole  subject  of  train  resistance,  strikes  one  as  being  too 
brief.  This  impression  is  strengthened  when  we  come  to  the 
section  on  construction,  the  author  of  which  ought  to  have  in- 
dulged in  the  recital  of  the  great  epic  of  railway  engineering 
from  the  Stephensons  and  I.  K.  Brunei  down  to  Harriman's 
levelling  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  a  gentle  gradient,  the  pierc- 
ing of  the  Simplon,  and  the  subaqueous  creations  about  Man- 
hattan. The  interesting  subject  of  the  interchange  of  freight 
cars  is  not  discussed  in  the  article.  The  lengthy  section  dealing 
with'  locomotive  power,  which  contains  nearly  all  that  the 
Britannica  has  to  say  about  steam  locomotives  —  there  being 


520  LOUIS   HEILPRItf 

no  separate  article  on  the  subject  (not  even  a  cross-reference 
under  Locomotive!)  and  less  than  a  page  on  it  under  Steam 
Engine  —  should  have  dealt  more  fully  with  the  anatomy  of 
the  various  types  of  engines  and  reproduced  pictorially  some  of 
the  forms  from  the  little  four-wheelers  of  the  early  days  to  the 
leviathans  of  the  Santa  Fe. 

In  a  publication  claiming  to  be  an  Anglo- American  encyclo- 
paedia (a  claim  fully  justified  with  respect  to  the  departments 
of  geography,  biography,  and  history)  space  should  have  been 
found  for  the  early  history  of  railway  construction  in  the  United 
States.  In  the  section  on  railway  accidents,  the  United  States 
figures  in  a  gruesome  way.  That  numerous  class  of  legislators, 
who,  yielding  to  popular  clamor,  are  intent  upon  keeping  rates 
below  the  level  at  which  our  railways  could  afford  to  bring  their 
physical  condition  up  to  the  requirements  of  safety,  should 
ponder  the  figures  here  given.  We  may  also  observe  that  the 
inadequate  biographies  of  George  and  Robert  Stephenson  have 
passed  from  the  ninth  into  the  eleventh  edition. 

The  new  Britannica  has  an  article  of  59  pages  on  Painting, 
the  joint  contribution  of  several  writers.  Schools  of  Painting 
in  the  ninth  edition,  covering  nearly  the  same  ground,  filled  only 
about  one-fourth  of  the  space.  The  United  States  has  not  been 
generously  dealt  with  here,  receiving  less  than  a  page.  Rumania 
(24  pages)  occupies  about  four  times  as  much  space  as  it  had 
in  the  ninth  edition,  which  took  the  liberty  of  omitting  the 
literature  of  the  country.  The  shifting  of  the  relative  impor- 
tance of  geographico-historical  subjects  is  well  exemplified  in 
the  articles  on  Japan  and  Persia.  Japan  has  119  pages  in  the 
eleventh  edition  (about  as  much  as  the  United  States),  and 
Persia  65 ;  in  the  ninth  edition,  Persia  had  100  and  Japan  23. 
One's  sense  of  proportion  is  offended  on  discovering  that  the 
Transvaal  has  a  longer  article  than  Bohemia  or  Sicily.  Promi- 
nent among  the  articles  on  celebrities  who  have  but  recently 
passed  away  is  the  eight-page  essay  on  Tolstoy,  by  C.  T.  II. 
Wright,  librarian  of  the  London  Library.  The  old  Britannica 
was  niggardly  in  its  treatment  of  the  labor  problem.  It  had 
only  3  pages  on  Trade  Unionism,  a  subject  now  covering  a  dozen 
larger  pages,  which  still  appears  too  little  for  an  encyclopaedia 
that  can  afford  to  give  15  pages  to  Plate,  10  to  Lace,  and  nearly 


THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIC    EXPERT  521 

12  to  Totemism.  We  have  14  pages  on  Strikes  and  Lockouts, 
where  there  was  no  such  caption  before.  Labor  Legislation  (21 
pages)  is  more  than  twice  as  long  as  the  corresponding  article 
in  the  ninth  edition.  It  is  regrettable  that  the  article  on  Social- 
ism, from  the  able  pen  of  James  Bonar  (not  quite  8  pages),  is 
much  shorter  than  the  one  it  has  supplanted.  The  article  Negro 
in  the  ninth  edition,  a  very  unsympathetic  production,  has  been 
superseded  by  a  longer  one,  conceived  in  a  more  humane  spirit. 
The  fulness  of  the  new  Britannica  in  everything  pertaining  to 
war  is  not  calculated  to  reassure  those  who  believe  that  aspera 
mitescent  scecula.  Ordnance,  for  example,  has  47  pages,  or 
nearly  three  times  as  much  space  as  was  occupied  by  the  corre- 
sponding article,  Gunmaking,  in  the  ninth  edition.  It  is  gratify- 
ing, however,  to  discover  that  the  longest  biography  in  the  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica  belongs  no  longer  to  Mars,  but  to  the 
Muses,  Napoleon  having  been  dethroned  by  Shakespeare.  A 
serious  omission  is  the  absence  of  an  article  on  the  Peasants' 
War.  The  subject  of  Peace  is  discussed  by  Sir  Thomas  Barclay, 
who  has  hopes  of  a  brighter  future  for  the  world,  in  spite  of 
Nietzsche's  rhapsody  about  war  reproduced  at  the  end  of  the 
article.  Those  people  who  cannot  get  themselves  wrought  up 
by  Italy's  dastardly  breach  of  the  peace,  on  the  ground  that  the 
Turks  are  a  nation  undeserving  of  sympathy,  would  be  edified 
if  they  happened  to  light  upon  the  following  passage  in  the 
article  on  International  Law,  contributed  by  the  same  distin- 
guished publicist  to  the  new  Britannica: 

Turkey  too  has  the  advantage  of  possessing  a  code  of  morals  which 
produces  so  high  a  standard  of  right  conduct  in  private  life  that 
very  little  in  the  way  of  moral  lessons  will  have  to  be  learned  by 
the  Ottomans  from  Western  civilization. 

The  more  closely  one  examines  the  fabric  of  the  splendid  work 
before  us,  the  more  clearly  is  its  dual  character  brought  into 
relief.  It  is  a  vast  storehouse  of  information  for  all  people  of 
culture,  upon  which  is  reared  an  imposing  superstructure,  ac- 
cessible only  to  a  few,  comprising  the  weightiest  elements  in  the 
whole  edifice  —  the  lengthy  scientific  treatises  designed  for  the 
specialist.  Much  of  what  might  be  put  within  the  reach  of  the 


522  LOUIS    HEILPRIN 

ordinary  reader  is  placed  aloft  where  he  cannot  easily  get  at  it 
or  where  it  is  presented  in  a  form  too  intricate  for  his  powers 
of  apprehension.  At  times,  there  is  even  something  like  a 
wanton  indifference  to  what  is  demanded  of  a  general  work  of 
reference.  A  feeling  of  this  sort  comes  over  us  when  we  turn 
to  Rain,  Lightning,  Wind,  Trade  Winds,  and  Tornado,  the 
treatises  under  Meteorology  and  Atmospheric  Electricity  not 
affording  an  adequate  substitute  for  what  we  should  like  to  find 
under  the  special  heads.  The  Britannica  is  conceived  on  too 
exalted  a  plane  to  permit  of  its  being  an  embodiment  of  the  ideal 
of  a  great  encyclopaedia  constructed  on  practical  lines.  Its  fidel- 
ity to  the  tradition  that  it  shall  be  an  exhaustive  summary  of 
man's  attainments  in  every  branch  of  research  and  investigation 
militates  against  its  being  invested  with  such  a  character.  Could 
not  an  encyclopaedia,  it  may  be  asked,  answering  in  an  equal 
measure  the  needs  of  the  great  mass  of  cultured  readers,  be  got 
into  a  much  smaller  compass  by  not  being  made  so  top-heavy  ? 
Undoubtedly  it  could,  but  it  is  questionable  whether,  without  the 
lofty  aims  that  have  actuated  the  successive  editors  of  the  Britan- 
nica, as  manifested  in  the  desire  to  make  the  work  transcendent 
as  a  monument  to  the  sciences,  the  encyclopaedia  would  ever  have 
risen  to  its  present  high  level  as  a  book  of  general  information. 


VI 
LAST  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  EVENING  POST 

The  last  of  the  articles  on  the  Britannica  appeared  in  the 
Nation  and  the  Evening  Post  during  October,  1911.  In  the 
same  month  the  Post  published  his  last  editorial  contribution, 
the  following  article  on  "  The  Tenacious  Ottoman  Empire  " : 

"  There  has  not  been  much  talk  for  some  time  past  of  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Turk  from  Europe.  A  little  while  ago  it  was  a 
common  notion  that  his  realm  could  not  endure  much  longer. 
But  with  the  reverses  and  internal  convulsions  of  Russia,  the 
lull  in  the  region  of  the  Balkans,  and  the  rise  of  a  Young  Turkey, 
the  situation  changed.  The  sudden  assault  that  we  are  now 
witnessing  from  a  new  quarter  tends,  of  course,  to  bring  about 
a  revival  of  the  old  feeling.  But  it  is  easy  to  overrate  the  im- 
portance which  such  an  act  of  spoliation  as  the  seizure  of  Tripoli 
would  have  with  reference  to  the  stability  of  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire. Turkey  has  survived  a  great  many  shocks.  She  bids  fair 
to  hold  her  place  on  the  map  of  Europe  and  Asia.  What  does 
her  history  teach  us  ? 

Just  two  hundred  years  have  elapsed  since  the  army  of  Peter 
the  Great,  in  the  summer  of  1711,  found  itself  hemmed  in  on 
the  bank  of  the  River  Pruth  by  the  forces  of  the  Turkish  Sultan, 
whom  Charles  XII  of  Sweden,  after  his  overthrow  at  Poltava, 
had  induced  to  take  up  arms  against  Russia.  The  Czar  was 
allowed  to  escape  on  condition  of  relinquishing  the  seaport  of 
Azov,  in  the  land  of  the  Tartars,  whose  capture  had  been  the 
first  achievement  of  the  infant  Russian  navy.  It  was  Peter  the 
Great  who  launched  Russia  upon  her  career  of  warfare  against 
the  Ottoman  Empire.  Seven  wars  have  been  waged  between 
his  successors  and  the  Turkish  Sultans,  in  the  last  of  which  the 


524  LOUIS   HEILPRIN 

Russian  hosts  advanced  to  the  very  gates  of  Constantinople. 
When  Russia  entered  the  lists,  Turkey  was  reeling  under  the 
combined  onslaughts  of  Austria,  Poland,  and  Venice.  The  blow 
dealt  the  Moslems  under  the  walls  of  Vienna  in  1683  liberated 
Europe  forever  from  the  aggressions  of  Islam,  and  the  mighty 
fabric  reared  by  Othman  and  his  successors  was  crumbling 
away.  Under  the  Empress  Catharine  II.  Russia  assumed  the 
role  —  a  role  which  she  was  soon  permitted  to  reserve  entirely 
to  herself  —  of  dismemberer  of  the  Ottoman  realm,  whose  dis- 
solution in  the  near  future  was  freely  predicted.  It  became  an 
article  of  faith  with  Russian  patriots  that  the  ' White  Czar' 
would  be  enthroned  on  the  Bosporus.  Catharine  made  Russia 
a  power  on  the  Black  Sea.  By  1812  the  boundaries  of  Muscovy 
had  been  advanced  to  the  Pruth. 

A  few  years  before  this  the  disruption  of  the  Turkish  Empire 
from  within  had  been  initiated  by  the  rising  of  the  Servians. 
Then  came  the  Greek  revolution.  Meanwhile,  Egypt,  under 
Mehemet  Ali,  had  been  cutting  loose  from  Constantinople.  In 
1829  the  Russian  forces  entered  Adrianople,  and  the  treaty  dic- 
tated there  gave  Russia  a  protectorate  over  Moldavia  and  Wal- 
lachia.  Turkey  was  going  to  pieces.  But  there  was  to  be  a 
respite.  England  could  not  brook  Russia's  establishing  herself 
as  a  Mediterranean  Power,  and  Russian  expansion  was  a  menace 
to  British  dominion  in  India.  In  1853  Czar  Nicholas  I.  told 
Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  the  British  Ambassador,  that  the  '  sick 
man '  was  dying ;  Nicholas  had  persuaded  himself  that  the 
time  was  opportune  for  another  advance  in  the  direction  of 
Constantinople.  He  did  not  gauge  the  temper  of  the  British 
nation,  could  not  foresee  that  an  enemy  would  arise  in  the  shape 
of  a  Erench  usurper,  and  failed  to  reckon  with  Austrian  ingrati- 
tude. Turkey  was  saved  and  Russia  humbled.  Another  twenty 
years  elapsed.  Then  Russia  made  a  more  powerful  onslaught 
than  ever  before  upon  the  Moslems.  She  rent  European  Turkey 
asunder.  But  after  the  lapse  of  a  generation  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire still  stood  firm,  with  its  seats  on  the  European  side  of  the 
Bosporus.  Russia's  own  creations  are  in  the  way  of  her  ever 
getting  to  Constantinople.  The  Powers  are  not  inclined  to  dis- 
turb the  present  situation. 

The  fact  is  that  the  world  has  all  along  been  laboring  more  or 


LAST    CONTRIBUTION    TO   EVENING   POST     525 

less  under  an  illusion  in  imagining  that  the  dismemberment  of 
Turkey  meant  speedy  disruption  and  dissolution.  For  two  hun- 
dred years  Turkey  has  been  parting  with  her  conquests,  but  the 
wresting  from  her  of  province  after  province  has  left  the  core 
of  the  empire  intact.  What  was  properly  Turkey  remains  in 
the  possession  of  the  Turks.  The  Ottomans  continue  to  be  mas- 
ters of  almost  the  entire  territory  ever  occupied  by  them  as 
dwellers  on  the  soil.  In  yielding  up  their  conquests,  they  have 
not  parted  with  their  strength.  The  extension  of  Turkish  do- 
minion after  the  conquest  of  Constantinople  in  1453  was  not 
accompanied  by  any  great  spread  of  the  Turkish  population 
over  the  annexed  regions.  There  was  at  no  time  any  consider- 
able fraction  of  the  Osmanlis  living  beyond  the  present  limits 
of  the  empire.  The  conquerors  were  not  inclined  to  settle  down 
in  large  numbers  in  the  midst  of  the  subjugated  peoples.  Even 
while  the  crescent  was  floating  over  the  battlements  of  Buda, 
the  ancient  seat  of  the  Hungarian  rulers,  the  Turks  barely 
strayed  northward  beyond  the  slopes  of  the  Balkan  Mountains. 
The  Servians  were  trampled  under  foot  by  their  Mohammedan 
masters,  but  they  did  not  have  very  many  of  them  dwelling  in 
their  midst.  Bosnia,  it  is  true,  was  in  a  considerable  measure 
Mohammedanized,  but  the  Moslem  element  there  is  mainly 
Slavic,  the  ruling  class  having  centuries  ago  embraced  Islam  in 
order  to  safeguard  its  power.  Two  centuries  of  Turkish  rule 
in  the  heart  of  Hungary  left  little  trace  of  foreign  occupation. 
The  Turks  made  no  attempt  to  assimilate  or  absorb  the  subju- 
gated race  or  to  supplant  the  Bible  with  the  Koran.  One  after 
another,  the  Christian  peoples  conquered  by  the  Sultans  have 
emerged  from  the  wreck  of  Ottoman  dominion  in  full  national- 
ity; but  so  has  the  Turkish  race  remained  intact  The  terri- 
tories that  the  Osmanlis  converted  into  their  fatherland  were 
conquered  in  the  first  century  and  a  half  of  their  existence  as 
a  nation,  and  nearly  the  whole  of  this  region  they  still  retain. 
Under  these  conditions,  there  is  no  telling  how  long  their  state 
may  survive.  When  the  Ottoman  Empire  was  at  the  zenith  of 
its  power,  Spain  was  at  the  zenith  of  hers.  She  was  the  most 
powerful  state  in  Christendom.  She  has  gone  the  way  of 
Turkey,  having  been  stripped  of  all  the  possessions  that  consti- 
tuted her  political  greatness.  But  Spain  lives  on  and  means 


526  LOUIS    HEILPKLN" 

still  to  play  a  role  in  the  world.  And  lie  would  be  rash  who 
should  make  any  prediction  regarding  the  future  of  Turkey 
based  on  the  fact  of  her  having  been  shorn  of  so  much  that  was 
once  hers.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  Powers  will  ever  allow  Russia 
again  to  lay  hands  upon  her.  And  with  her  arch-enemy  kept 
at  a  distance,  a  progressive  Turkey  may  have  an  indefinite  lease 
of  life." 


VII 
LOUIS    HEILPRIN,    THE   MAN 

Louis  Heilprin  expired  peacefully,  after  great  suffering  borne 
with  heroic  fortitude,  on  February  12,  1912.  He  was  in  his 
sixty-first  year.  At  his  funeral,  which  took  place  from  the  house 
of  his  sister,  Mrs.  A.  P.  Loveman,  Mr.  Hollo  Ogden,  the  editor 
of  the  Evening  Post,  and  Mr.  Louis  E.  Levy  expressed  their 
sense  of  his  worth. 

Thus  closed  a  life  to  which  came  few  of  the  ordinary  tokens 
of  outward  success,  but  which  was  rich  in  satisfactions  of  a 
deeper  nature.  The  very  physical  defect  which  closed  to  him 
the  avenues  that  lead  less  gifted  men  to  fame  and  fortune  had 
its  compensating  side.  Even  apart  from  training  his  memory 
to  an  almost  incredible  extent  —  he  had  literally  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  historical  dates  at  his  fingers'  ends  —  the  weakness  of 
his  eyes  had  some  compensations ;  it  certainly  interfered  not  in 
the  least  with  his  enjoyment  of  the  world  around  him.  He  saw 
more  of  the  beauties  of  a  landscape  and  even  of  its  details  than 
most  persons  of  sound  sight.  In  dwelling,  with  his  glowing  en- 
thusiasm, on  the  charms  of  nature,  or  on  certain  architectural 
features  of  city  life,  or  on  some  details  of  engineering  construc- 
tion, he  seemed  to  be  possessed  of  an  inward  faculty  of  seizing 
the  salient  features  of  what  was  before  him  that  served  the 
purposes  of  normal  vision.  How  he  turned  out,  as  he  did  in 
great  profusion  (especially  in  his  last  years),  the  dainty  and 
artistic  crayon  sketches,  of  landscapes  seen  only  by  his  imagina- 
tion, that  were  the  delight  of  his  friends,  was  a  constant  mystery 
to  them  as, well  as  to  one  or  two  art  critics  who  happened  to 
notice  his  work  —  always  performed  hurriedly,  to  spare  his  eyes, 
and  offered,  as  a  gift,  with  engaging  shyness. 

How  he  studied,  and  acquired  his  vast  stores  of  knowledge, 


528  LOUIS    HEILPBDT 

was  scarcely  less  mysterious.  He  never  spoke  of  what  he  was 
doing.  Language  after  language  was  acquired,  at  odd  moments, 
in  the  privacy  of  his  room  —  how  many  in  all  no  one  ever  knew. 
Late  in  life  he  even  added  a  little  Japanese.  "  It  is  one's  duty 
to  know  nowadays  something  of  that  country,"  he  remarked,  in 
extenuation,  as  it  were,  of  his  presumptuousness  in  tackling  the 
Oriental  tongue.  Hebrew  he  also  studied,  to  some  extent,  late 
in  life,  probably  in  deference  to  the  memory  of  his  father,  whom 
he  revered,  and  after  whom  he  wished  to  model  his  life.  A  stoic 
all  his  life,  the  death  of  any  member  of  the  family  scarcely  drew 
a  tear  from  him.  His  inborn  modesty  and  constant  self-restraint 
suppressed,  if  it  ever  existed  in  him,  the  desire  to  give,  in  ordi- 
nary conversation,  an  inkling  of  the  thoughts  that  crowded  his 
brain.  He  was  not  ever  eloquent  as  his  father,  nor  as  uniformly 
communicative  as  was  his  brother,  but  his  friends  and  it  may 
be  occasional  strangers  were  ever  and  anon  carried  along  by 
those  streams  of  information  that  ceased  to  be  surprising  only 
because  they  flowed  so  spontaneously  and  freely.  And,  again,  it 
became  a  matter  of  wonder  how  this  plain,  unassuming  man,  of 
quiet  demeanor  and  simple  language,  never  failed  to  impress  him- 
self upon  strangers,  whatever  their  station.  All  were  alike 
drawn  to  him  and  recognized  him  as  a  remarkable  man.  His 
goodness  was  as  transparent  as  the  wealth  of  his  knowledge.  He 
had  no  thought  of  self  in  what  he  did  and  said.  Duty  —  to  his 
fellowmen,  the  state,  the  family  —  guided  him  at  every  step 
of  his  life.  He  seemed  to  possess  a  real  affinity  for  suffering  or 
needy  humanity,  and  was  sought  out,  with  almost  ludicrous 
regularity,  by  persons  in  want,  whether  on  his  solitary  rambles 
through  the  country,  or  an  evening  stroll  through  city  streets, 
or  in  travelling  on  a  railroad  train.  Somehow,  those  in  trouble 
naturally  turned  to  him,  and  he  never  failed  to  respond,  helping 
not  only  with  money,  but  going  miles  out  of  his  way  to  pilot 
an  uncertain  wayfarer  to  his  destination.  In  his  modest  annual 
budget  the  first  place  was  given  to  charity,  then  came  contribu- 
tions for  public  purposes.  For  purely  personal  pleasures,  aside 
from  books,  there  was  neither  time  nor  money.  But  no  one  de- 
voted more  time  and  thought  to  civic  matters.  He  kept  abreast 
of  all  the  important  national  and  municipal  questions,  and  at 
election  time  he  sought  information  from  every  quarter  concern- 


LOUIS   HEILPRIN,    THE   MAN  529 

iiig  candidates  and  measures.  Voting  was  to  him  a  sacred 
performance. 

Like  his  father  and  his  brother,  he  never  used  tobacco,  but 
unlike  Angelo  (who  discarded  vegetarianism  before  he  left  for 
Europe  to  study),  he  abstained  from  meat-eating  until  the  end. 
But  he  never  made  propaganda  for  his  practice,  and  even  took 
a  semi-humorous  view  of  the  creed  of  more  zealous  vegetarians 
than  himself. 

The  European  countries,  whose  charms  he  so  often  glowingly 
described,  he  never  saw  again;  but  he  retained  the  most  de- 
tailed recollection  of  what  he  had  seen  in  Hungary  and  on  his 
way  to  America,  in  his  earliest  childhood.  Often  urged  to  visit 
the  old  world,  he  always,  gently  but  firmly,  refused  to  entertain 
the  idea.  He  had,  however,  vaguely  planned  to  visit  some  of  the 
larger  cities  of  our  West,  to  rejoice  in  their  growth  and 
progress. 

Devoted  to  his  relatives  and  a  few  life-long  friends,  and  to 
influencing,  in  his  own  way,  the  young  children  in  the  family 
as  he  had  moulded  their  parents,  he  passed  the  evening  of  his 
life,  as  he  had  passed  all  his  days,  in  serene  thought  of  beautiful 
and  serious  things  and  in  full  faith  in  the  progress  of  man- 
kind. He  rarely  stepped  forth  into  the  blazing  light  of  publicity. 
Excepting  his  Historical  Reference  Book  and  a  little  Reformed 
Primer,  on  which  he  expended  much  labor  and  ingenuity,  he 
drifted  into  his  literary  work  rather  than  chose  it,  his  father's 
connection  with  cyclopaedias  first  marking  out  the  road.  Had 
he  been  able  to  follow  his  own  inclinations,  he  would  have  chosen 
the  pursuits  of  an  engineer.  Though  at  home  in  many  fields  of 
human  endeavor,  notably  so  in  political  economy,  and  a  sound 
thinker  on  educational  matters,  he  found  his  greatest  interest 
in  problems  connected  with  railroads,  shipping,  and  applied 
mechanics.  Considering  his  slender  mathematical  equipment, 
he  had  some  surprising  glimpses  of  the  possibilities  of  physics 
and  mechanics.  One  speculation  of  this  kind  communicated 
orally,  but  in  full  detail,  to  a  professor  of  mathematics  in  one 
of  our  leading  universities,  was  pronounced  by  him  to  be  an 
extraordinary  tour  de  force. 


PAET  IV 
ANCESTKY   AND    THE   FAMILY 


PHINEAS  MENDEL  HEILPIUN 


ANCESTRY  AND  THE  FAMILY 

As  one  surveys  the  lives  of  the  three  remarkable  men  I  have 
endeavored  to  sketch  in  these  pages,  and  sums  up  the  characteris- 
tics common  to  father  and  sons,  the  question  of  ancestry  and 
hereditary  influence  becomes  one  of  great  interest.  There  were 
strong  minds  among  various  ancestors  of  the  Heilprins  for  cen- 
turies back,  as  the  names  of  writers  well  known  in  Hebrew  liter- 
ature, and  represented  in  the  catalogues  of  the  British  Museum, 
testify.  The  one  that  concerns  us  most  in  this  memoir  is  Michael 
Heilprin's  father,  Phineas  Mendel. 

He  was  born  in  Lublin,  Russian  Poland,  in  November,  1801, 
and  died  in  Washington,  January  30,  1863.  Trained  in  the 
Talmud,  he  was  early  attracted  by  the  works  of  Maimonides, 
and  having  familiarized  himself  with  Arabic  and  Greek  philos- 
ophy as  expounded  by  the  learned  Hebraic  writers,  he  took  up 
the  study  of  the  modern  philosophers  of  Germany,  particularly 
of  Kant.  He  never  neglected  these  studies,  even  while  engaged 
in  commercial  pursuits.  He  published  many  books,  all  in  He- 
brew, the  most  important  of  which,  Teshubot  be-Anshe  Awen 
("  Answering  like  Wicked  Men,"  Frankfort,  1845),  was  an  at- 
tack on  the  reform  plans  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  German 
rabbis.  It  has  been  called  "  probably  the  sanest  and  most  broad- 
minded  of  anti-reform  writings  in  Hebrew "  (Jewish  Com- 
ment). He  also  wrote  on  Maimonides,  on  logic,  and  on  the 
proper  textual  treatment  of  the  Talmud.  Phineas  Mendel 
Heilprin  was  remembered  by  his  grandchildren  as  a  serious, 
somewhat  frail  man,  of  quiet  demeanor,  old-fashioned  as  to  his 
garb  and  his  ways.  He  was  immersed  in  his  favorite  studies 
even  after  he  came  to  this  country,  though  he  followed  American 
politics  with  keen  interest 


534  ANCESTRY   AND    THE    FAMILY 

Michael  Heilprin's  mother  was  a  woman  of  strong  mind,  much 
interested  in  current  affairs,  and  not  without  influence  on  the 
mental  development  of  her  children.  She  had  a  good  fund  of 
humor,  which  descended  to  them. 

With  an  ancestry  such  as  this,  it  is  not  surprising  that  other 
descendants  than  Michael  Heilprin  inherited  strength  of  mind 
and  character.  Sarah  Franklin,  the  elder  sister  of  Michael,  in 
particular  was  an  extraordinary  personality.  She  was  from 
early  childhood  the  companion  of  her  brother  and,  throughout 
life,  in  the  fullest  sympathy  with  all  he  did  and  felt.  She  died 
November  16,  1908,  having  almost  completed  her  eighty-eighth 
year.  Louis  Heilprin  spoke  at  her  funeral,  and  his  oration, 
fortunately  printed  at  the  urgent  request  of  her  family,  en- 
ables us  now  to  obtain  a  clear  picture  of  the  early  surroundings 
which  bred  Michael  Heilprin  and  left  their  imprint  on  his  two 
sons. 

"  In  those  early  days  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  he  said,  "  the 
Jews  of  Poland  still  lived  largely  isolated  from  the  great  world 
through  the  force  of  historical  events  and  pressure  from  without, 
as  well  as  barriers  within,  although  they  were  coming  more  and 
more  into  touch  with  it.  But  the  narrow  bounds  within  which  it 
was  confined  seemed  in  many  respects  to  make  the  life  of  each 
little  Jewish  community  only  the  more  intense,  with  the  result 
of  developing  strong  qualities  of  heart  and  mind.  There  was 
that  reverence  for  the  past  than  which  nothing  is  more  potent 
in  elevating  the  moral  tone  of  a  society.  Hampered  in  so  many 
ways  in  their  activities,  the  Jews  sought  compensation  in  the 
pleasures  of  the  intellect  Debarred  from  mingling  in  the  world, 
they  developed  a  community  of  interests  that  quickened  the 
sentiment  of  fellow-feeling  among  them.  Long  ages  of  oppres- 
sion and  of  suffering,  borne  in  common,  had  strengthened  the 
sense  of  the  obligation  to  help  the  unfortunate.  There  was  the 
tradition  of  the  duty  which  each  one  owes  to  his  neighbor. 
There  was  the  tradition  of  assistance  to  those  in  quest  of  knowl- 
edge. There  was  the  tradition  of  remembering  the  poor  on  joy- 
ful occasions.  The  religious  holidays,  with  their  manifold  fes- 
tivities, were  so  many  bonds  binding  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity closer  to  one  another,  and  the  sunshine  of  the  Sabbath 


SAKAH   FKANKLIN  535 

helped  them  to  forget  their  woes.  He  who  was  poor  in  worldly- 
goods  but  rich  in  stores  of  wisdom  stood  high  in  the  social  scale. 
He  who  possessed  nothing  but  a  thirst  for  learning  had  a  claim 
on  the  charity  of  all  who  could  afford  to  dispense  it.  There  was 
enthusiasm  for  the  things  of  the  intellect.  The  current  of  life 
flowed  deep  and  strong.  Its  trivialities  did  not  count  for  as 
much  as  now,  and  serious  and  reflective  minds  were  developed. 
There  were  many  who  were  young  in  years  but  old  in  wisdom. 
A  good  name  was  reckoned  above  all  else.  The  members  of  a 
family  clung  close  to  each  other  and  were  one  in  weal  and 
woe.  There  were  joyful  happenings  and  mournful  happenings, 
and  whatever  befell  interested  and  agitated  the  whole  commun- 
ity. It  was  an  age  of  profound  sensibilities,  when  the  souls 
of  men  were  attuned  to  respond  to  the  impulses  emanating 
from  the  storm  and  stress  of  existence  in  an  atmosphere  of 
anxious  yearnings  and  hopeful  anticipations,  of  earnest  strivings 
and  pious  devotion.  Among  the  Jews  of  Poland  the  misfortunes 
of  their  country  and  the  heroic  deeds  of  her  sons  in  the  struggle 
against  her  despoilers  had  kindled  a  spirit  of  patriotism  such 
as  had  not  been  felt  before.  .  .  . 

No  more  than  from  the  world  of  nature  could  the  Jews  of 
Poland  be  shut  out  from  the  world  of  intellect.  The  immortal 
works  of  men's  minds  were  making  their  way  more  and  more 
from  abroad  into  the  Jewish  communities.  Lessing's  '  Nathan 
der  Weise,'  the  herald  of  happier  days  for  Israel,  was  read 
and  reread  with  profound  and  grateful  appreciation,  and  the 
creations  of  Schiller  and  Goethe  had  become  household  treasures 
with  the  more  enlightened.  There  were  some  who  mastered  the 
ancient  classics  along  with  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  the 
Talmud  and  who  drew  deep  draughts  from  the  rich  fountains 
of  Polish  literature. 

The  spirit  of  the  new  culture  and  the  impulse  given  to  free 
thinking  were  powerfully  reflected  in  the  sensitive  soul  of 
Sarah  Franklin  and  her  whole  life  attested  in  a  beautiful  way 
the  impress  of  those  early  influences.  .  .  . 

The  rising  of  the  Poles  against  the  Eussian  yoke  in  1830, 
an  event  removed  from  us  by  more  than  the  ordinary  duration 
of  human  life,  took  place  when  ten  summers  had  passed  over 
her  who  has  but  now  departed  from  our  midst.  The  memories 


536  ANCESTRY   AND    THE   FAMILY 

of  that  heroic  struggle  left  a  deep  impress  upon  her.  To  the 
end  of  her  days  Muscovite  oppression  was  to  her  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  spirit  of  evil  that  thus  far  has  so  largely  marked 
the  dealings  of  nation  with  nation. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  change  from  the  atmosphere  of  de- 
pression that  weighed  upon  down-trodden  Poland  to  that  of 
sunshine  and  hope  in  which  Hungary  was  bathed  in  the  years 
preceding  the  great  upheaval  of  1848.  Beyond  the  lofty  wall 
of  the  Carpathians  stretched  a  land  whose  inhabitants  were  en- 
gaged in  a  strenuous  endeavor  to  uplift  their  country  and  right 
its  wrongs.  An  open  and  generous  mind  like  hers  could  not 
help  being  permeated  by  the  spirit  of  her  new  environment. 
It  was  as  if  a  new  light  were  dawning.  There  was  inspiration 
in  the  air,  a  contagious  and  irresistible  enthusiasm,  a  feeling 
as  of  a  march  toward  victory.  We  can  hardly  realize  at  this 
distance  of  time  and  in  the  calm  political  atmosphere  of  our 
day  with  what  emotion  each  fresh  product  of  man's  genius 
coming  from  abroad  was  hailed  that  might  help  to  throw  light 
upon  the  problems  confronting  humanity;  with  what  avidity 
the  works  of  the  master-minds  of  England  and  France  were 
welcomed;  and  how  the  characters  and  scenes  of  American 
fiction,  breathing  nature  and  a  freer  air,  took  hold  of  the  hearts 
of  those  to  whom  the  country  of  Washington  had  become  a 
glorious  vision.  This  new  abode,  the  realm  of  the  Magyars, 
soon  won  the  affections  of  one  to  whom  nature  appealed  so 
powerfully  —  a  land  of  exuberant  plenty  and  glad  hospitality, 
a  region  of  vine-clad  hills  and  laden  orchards,  of  waving  fields 
and  boundless  pastures,  the  home  of  the  skylark  and  the  night- 
ingale. Her  love  for  it  could  not,  however,  sever  the  bonds 
that  tied  her  to  the  land  of  her  birth,  and  to  the  end  of  her  life 
the  fate  of  Poland  continued  to  sadden  her  soul.  And  when 
two  score  years  and  ten  separated  her  from  her  second  father- 
land she  did  not  cease  to  cherish  her  beloved  Hungary. 

From  a  bright  dream  there  was  an  awful  awakening.  It  was 
not  in  the  character  of  Sarah  Franklin  to  despair;  and  long 
before  she  had  reached  old  age  she  beheld  a  new  era  of  happi- 
ness dawning  upon  the  country  whose  misfortunes  had  compelled 
her  family  to  seek  an  abode  in  a  land  of  freedom  beyond  the 


SAKAH   FKANKLIN  537 

The  tribulations  of  the  years  spent  in  Hungary  remained  an 
abiding  influence  in  the  development  of  that  sensitive  nature. 
Sympathy  with  struggling  humanity  in  every  land  and  clime 
could  not  but  be  a  prominent  trait  in  such  a  mind.  Her  in- 
terest in  the  affairs  and  welfare  of  peoples  and  countries  was 
never  allowed  to  slumber.  She  remained  to  the  last  keenly  alive 
to  the  political  happenings  in  her  country  and  those  of  the  great 
world,  gathering  up  each  day  the  tidings  from  near  and  far 
with  a  spirit  as  fresh  and  receptive  as  ever.  That  feeling  of 
self-complacency  with  regard  to  the  present,  amounting  to  an 
undue  depreciation  of  the  past,  which  is  altogether  too  abid- 
ing in  this  age  of  ours,  was  not  a  part  of  Sarah!  Franklin's 
optimism.  .  .  . 

The  ever-recurring  enjoyment  which  she  derived  from  the 
things  about  her  and  the  daily  dispensations  of  nature  helped 
to  sustain  her  sweet  disposition.  It  was  impossible  for  anyone 
who  knew  her  not  to  be  struck  by  the  feeling  of  thankfulness 
that  was  in  her.  If  a  few  feet  of  greensward  lay  between  her 
door-step  and  the  pavement  where  the  rule  was  for  a  house  to 
stand  close  to  the  sidewalk,  or  if  the  sunlight  that  fell  on  the 
wall  of  the  near-by  mansion  was  made  mellow  by  the  pleasing 
color  of  the  paint  upon  the  bricks,  or  if  her  eyes,  when  she 
looked  out  from  her  window,  could  rest  upon  the  foliage  in  her 
neighbor's  garden,  it  was  a  boon  to  be  appreciated  each  day  and 
each  moment,  something  of  which  she  could  never  weary.  \Ve 
know  how  she  welcomed  each  bright  sunny  morning,  accounting 
it  as  something  for  which  to  be  grateful.  For  her  whatever  was 
capable  of  affording  pleasure,  no  matter  how  humble  a  thing, 
was  worth  enjoying. 

That  which  was  plain  and  unpretentious,  which  reflected  a 
simple  taste,  or  which  was  in  keeping  with  the  quiet  current  of 
life  in  the  days  when  people  were  not  so  absorbed  as  now  in 
the  struggle  for  existence,  appealed  to  her  most  strongly.  *  I 
like  the  plain  thing,'  she  used  to  say.  She  was  pained  by  the 
sight  of  the  many  unhealthy  excrescences  upon  the  social  and 
industrial  life  of  our  age,  resulting  from  the  love  of  display 
and  the  pursuit  of  wealth.  She  turned  her  eyes  away  from 
the  lofty  structures  that  appeared  to  symbolize  a  greedy  de- 
sire to  get  ahead  of  one's  neighbor,  even  at  the  cost  of  throwing 


538  ANCESTRY   AND    THE    FAMILY 

away  all  consideration  for  others.  She  never  ceased  to  sorrow 
for  those  who  had  to  toil  under  conditions  imposed  by  the 
ruthless  so-called  necessities  of  business.  No  lapse  of  years 
could  dull  her  sensitiveness  to  these  things. 

Seldom  has  anyone  displayed  an  equal  strength  of  mind  under 
affliction.  However  great,  however  sudden,  the  blow,  she  re- 
mained erect  and  unbending,  abiding  meekly  by  the  decree  of 
heaven,  and  never  letting  fall  the  burdens  which  were  resting 
on  her.  No  matter  what  befell,  each  day  was  still  to  her  a  day 
that  had  to  be  lived  through  in  the  way  most  beneficial  to  her- 
self and  to  those  about  her,  bringing  its  tasks  that  had  to  be 
performed,  its  obligations  and  duties  to  which  she  was  bound 
to  attend  as  cheerfully  as  was  in  her  power.  So  she  trained 
her  will  to  turn  from  the  sorrows  of  the  past  hopefully  to  the 
future.  With  her  each  day  was  not  something  added  to  the  past 
and  therefore  a  thing  of  no  consequence,  soon  to  melt  away  in 
the  distance  and  be  forgotten,  but  rather  something  that  be- 
longed to  the  future,  the  beginning  of  that  which  was  to  come. 
And  BO  she  went  about  the  toils  of  her  household,  setting  her 
face  calmly  to  what  was  before  her,  averting  her  gaze  as  far  as 
she  was  able  from  the  sadness  within,  and  finding  some  healing 
balm  in  the  nature  about  her,  to  whose  charms  she  could  not 
remain  altogether  insensible  even  in  the  greatest  sorrow.  Her 
sympathy  for  others  helped  to  sustain  her  in  her  affliction.  Her 
own  grief  should  not  be  a  grief  to  others.  No  depth  of  sorrow 
could  lessen  her  considerateness  for  those  about  her.  Nothing 
could  show  this  more  strikingly  than  the  way  in  which  after 
some  great  bereavement  she  felt  moved  to  write  a  few  lines  to 
her  dear  ones  at  a  distance  in  order  that  they  might  get  a 
comforting  word  from  her,  saying  that  she  had  relished  a  little 
walk,  or  that  the  weather  was  enjoyable,  something  that  might 
make  them  feel  that  she  was  trying  to  get  a  little  solace  some- 
where. She  was  always  willing  to  set  her  mind  to  look  at  the 
hopeful  side  of  things.  '  May-be  something  good  will  come  of 
it '  or  *  I  wish  something  good  may  come  of  it/  such  ex- 
pressions were  ever  ready  on  her  lips.  Wishing  and  planning 
for  others  kept  her  spirit  youthful.  .  .  . 

To  keep  body  and  mind  busy,  to  be  cheerfully  but  not  rest- 
lessly active,  was  at  all  times  her  natural  disposition,  and  even 


SARAH   FBANKLIN  539 

to  the  end  she  was  able  in  a  considerable  measure  to  satisfy 
this  impulse.  It  was  not  in  her  nature  to  be  idle  even  under 
physical  suffering,  and  to  the  very  last  day  she  would  not  lay 
down  the  cares  of  her  household,  each  little  detail  claiming  her 
attention  as  insistently  as  in  her  younger  years.  In  all  this  she 
was  not  in  the  least  guided  by  any  self-imposed  rule  of  conduct. 
She  did  instinctively  that  which  conduced  to  serenity  and  calm- 
ness of  spirit.  And  as  she  grew  old  and  at  last  left  far  behind 
her  the  ordinary  allotted  bounds  of  human  life,  that  extraordi- 
nary reserve  of  moral  strength,  resolution,  and  will-power  which 
had  become  hers  through  the  influence  of  mental  habit  that 
almost  amounted  to  genius  sustained  her  and  kept  her  from 
sinking.  So  she  passed  away,  full  of  years  but  young  in  spirit, 
without  having  had  to  taste  the  bitterness  of  decline.  Such  an 
ending  to  such  a  living !  " 

In  thus  commemorating  Sarah  Franklin,  Louis  Heilprin  has 
unconsciously  depicted  his  own  nature,  in  all  its  warmth  and 
nobility. 

A  few  words  remain  to  be  said  of  other  members  of  the 
family.  Isaac,  Michael  Heilprin's  only  brother,  was  a  talented 
man,  of  considerable  linguistic  ability  and  sound  education.  He 
had  a  vivacious  temperament  and  much  wit.  In  his  warm- 
heartedness and  his  patriotic  fervor  —  first  for  Hungary,  then 
for  this  country  —  he  greatly  resembled  his  brother.  He  fol- 
lowed commercial  pursuits  in  Washington,  and  died,  in  his 
seventy-third  year,  July  26,  1900.  Fanny,  the  younger  of  the 
sisters,  was  a  woman  of  rare  sweetness  of  disposition  and 
of  great  force  of  character.  She  died,  as  the  wife  of  Dr. 
James  Horwitz,  of  Cleveland,  May  10,  1876,  in  her  forty-fifth 
year. 

Of  the  four  sisters  of  Louis  and  Angelo,  all  born  before  them, 
the  two  eldest,  Amelia  (Mrs.  M.  Silver)  and  Adassa  (Mrs.  A.  P. 
Loveman),  still  survive.  The  latter  wrote  in  former  years  casu- 
ally for  the  press.  In  1872  she  contributed  political  summaries 
to  the  Week,  a  periodical  published  for  a  short  time  in  New 
York.  Susan,  the  third  sister,  was  for  some  years  at  the  head 
of  a  private  school  in  Summit.  She  died  March  21,  1911,  at 
the  age  of  sixty-four.  Of  the  youngest  sister,  Celia,  who  died 


540  ANCESTRY   AND    THE    FAMILY 

eleven  days  before  Susan,  in  her  sixty-second  year,  I  dare  not 
speak.  But  I  cannot  close  these  pages  without  a  thought  of  her 
gentle  spirit,  nor  without  the  hope  that,  were  she  still  with 
me,  she  would  approve  of  what  I  have  said  of  her  father  and 
brothers. 


THE    END 


A    000036721 


